Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that India has created a world record with 64.2 crore voters participating in the Lok Sabha Polls. Briefing media in New Delhi today, Mr Kumar said that the number is 1.5 times of the voters of all G7 countries – US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada. He said, in this Lok Sabha polls, 31.2 crore women voters cast their votes which is also the highest ever in the world. He also said, only 39 repolling were conducted in this election unlike 540 repolling in 2019 General Election. Mr Kumar said, over 68 thousand monitoring teams and 1.5 crore polling and security personnel were involved in the electoral exercise.
The Chief Election Commissioner said, no major incident of violence took place in this Lok Sabha election. He said, seizures of ten thousand crore rupees reported, which include cash, freebies, drugs and liquor, as compared to three thousand 500 crore rupees in 2019. Mr Kumar said, over 90 per cent of 495 complaints of Model Code of Conduct violations disposed during this year’s General Elections.
Highlighting the details related to robust counting process, the Chief Election Commissioner said, three layer security of Central Armed Police Forces has been put in place at the counting centres. He said, round the clock CCTV coverage will be done at the counting centres along with micro observers on each counting table.
Mr Kumar said that all the issues raised by the opposition party delegation with the commission have been addressed. In an apparent reference to Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s allegation that Union Home Minister Amit Shah called returning officers, the CEC said that it is not right to spread rumours. Replying to a question on conducting assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Kumar said, the commission will soon start the poll process in J&K.
