The Congress on Monday expressed suspicion about foul play in the Gujarat election by pointing to the last-hour surge in the polling percentage. Congress media department head Pawan Khera said at a news conference: “We saw in media reports that over 16 lakh voters cast their votes after the scheduled closure time of 5 pm. Now we are analysing Form 17C and find that there has been a jump of 10-11 percent in the last one hour, between 5-6 pm, in some constituencies. This is unusual.”
Form 17C is the certificate given by the Election Commission to the candidates detailing polling in every booth with a complete account of recorded votes. The form bears the signatures of the polling agents of every candidate and the polling officer.
Asked why the Congress did not flag these concerns on the day of results, Khera said: “Collecting Form 17C from candidates and analysing them takes time. It is not that counting would have stopped and repoll ordered had we flagged the concerns that day.”
Khera added: “We see that constituencies in the second phase, particularly in Ahmedabad and Vadodara, recorded massive polling despite the absence of crowds at the booths after 5 pm. Our candidates who were patrolling their constituencies didn’t notice crowds after 5 pm to justify this jump.”
The Election Commission’s initial report suggested 58.8 percent polling in the second phase but it was revised to 65.3 percent later. Arguing that the last-hour surge would have been possible if there were a stampede-like situation outside booths after 5pm, Khera said: “Usually it takes 60 seconds to cast one vote. We can do a mock drill and find out that the process doesn’t take less than 60 seconds to be completed. But records show one vote was cast in 25 to 30 seconds at many booths. At one booth, 16,000 votes were cast in one hour. In some seats, we see an 11.55 percent jump in one hour.”
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