Here's what EC has to say on delay in voter turnout figures

The Election Commission on Friday said it attaches "due importance" to the timely release of voter turnout figures after each phase of the poll, a statement which comes amid allegations by the opposition of delays and discrepancies by the poll authority on the issue.

Opposition parties including the Left, Trinamool Congress and the Congress have claimed that the poll panel is deliberately not sharing the turnout statistics and that there were discrepancies in the data shared days after the first phase of poll on April 19.

"Disclosures and transparency are standard practices in the EC's work. As per statutory requirements, voter turnout is to be recorded at every polling station in absolute numbers in Form 17C. As a strong measure of transparency, the copies of Form 17C, duly signed by the presiding officer and all present polling agents, are shared with all present polling agents," it said.

This is for the first time the EC has officially come out with a statement on allegations of delay in sharing turnout data.

"Leave alone constituency, even booth-wise data of actual number of votes polled is available with the candidates, which is a statutory requirement," it asserted.

As a disclosure initiative for other stakeholders and media, the state, parliamentary constituency and assembly constituency wise tentative turnout figures are made available through EC's Voter Turnout app which is regularly updated, the election watchdog said.

"The Commission is committed to provide voter turnout figures timely that is useful for media and other stakeholders in the coming phases," it said.

A voter turnout of 66.14 percent was recorded in phase one and 66.71 percent in phase two of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission had said on Tuesday.

On the same day, the Congress, CPI-M and TMC had questioned the EC over the delay in announcing the final voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the Lok Sabha polls, 11 days after the first round of polling on April 19.

Officially sharing the turnout figure, the poll panel had said in phase one of the elections, 66.22 percent of male and 66.07 female electors turned up to vote. The turnout for registered third-gender voters stood at 31.32 percent.

In the 2019 polls, the turnout in the first phase stood at 69.43 percent.

In the second phase of elections held on April 26, the male voter turnout was recorded at 66.99 per cent, while the female turnout stood at 66.42 per cent.

As many as 23.86 percent of the registered third gender voters came out to vote.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in phase two, the turnout was 69.64 percent.

In phase one, 102 seats went to poll, while in phase two elections were held in 88 constituencies.