EC says 62.59% final voter turnout as AAP claims foul play

New Delhi: Amid Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal questioning the “delay” by the Election Commission in giving the final voter turnout figure for the assembly polls, the election panel on Sunday announced that the final voter turnout was 62.59% , which is 5% less than 2015. The poll panel cited its verification protocol for the delay. Provisional figures for the turnout, ranging from 57% to 61% were put out on the EC’s app on Saturday evening after the election.

The highest voter turnout was recorded in Balliamaran at 71.66% while the lowest was at Delhi Cantonment polling station. Okhla, where the Shaheen Bagh protests are on and Seelampur also registered high turnout. The EC press conference came hours after Kejriwal termed the delay in announcement of final figures “absolutely shocking”. "Absolutely shocking. What is EC doing? Why are they not releasing poll turnout figures, several hours after polling?" he tweeted.

AAP had also raised the electronic voting machine bogey. It alleged that machines were being moved around without mandatory protection of reserve police.


However, the EC denied any irregularities in the protocols in transporting the EVMs. “All EVMs that were used for the polls have been accounted for. EVMs were sealed in front of party representatives and have been stored safely with police protection in centres,” an official said. EC also dismissed all allegations of data manipulation.

“The data we have shared was shared with polling agents of all candidates at polling station. It is exactly the same. So there is no question of data manipulation. It is done through a very transparent process. Also everywhere the final figures only come by next afternoon or so. Look at 2015 election data...” Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi Ranbir Singh said at a press conference.