The Election Commission on Monday announced that India set a world record with 642 million registered voters in this polling season. A record-breaking 312 million women participated in the voting process in the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections 2024.
CEC Rajiv Kumar said, the process of vote counting on June 4 will begin with postal ballots only. “Postal ballot counting will start first. After only half an hour, we will start EVM counting. There is no doubt about it,” Rajiv Kumar said. The seven-phase 2024 vote began on April 19 and was held in scorching summer heat in many parts of the country, with temperatures rising to nearly 50 degrees Celsius in some north and northwestern regions.
Addressing the press conference, CEC Kumar said, “We have created a world record of 642 million voters. This is 1.5 times voters of all G7 countries and 2.5 times voters of 27 countries in EU.” He also gave a standing ovation to all voters who took part in Lok Sabha elections 2024.
The election commissioner also said that 2024 Lok Sabha elections saw fewer re-elections. He said, “Due to the meticulous work of the election personnel we ensured fewer repolls – we saw 39 repolls in Lok Sabha polls 2024 as opposed to 540 in 2019 and 25 out of 39 repolls were in 2 States only.”
Rajiv Kumar said voter turnout in Jammu & Kashmir was the highest in the last four decades in this Lok Sabha elections as he also mentioned that violence was not witnessed in this election. “All development work used to stop during MCC, EC gave permission within 48 hours of applications in 95-98 per cent projects,” he said.
“Election Commission made a seizure record of almost ₹10,000 crores during this election. This is nearly 3 times the value seized in 2019…Local teams were empowered to do their work,” says CEC Rajiv Kumar, adding, “This is one of the General Elections where we have not seen violence. This required two years of preparation.” The election commissioner also took a jibe at the “laapataa gentlemen” jibe at the Opposition saying, “We were always here, never went missing.”
