2 weeks Ago By Anurag Bende
Pune: Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi founder Prakash Ambedkar has written to state chief electoral officer S Chockalingam expressing doubts over the voter turnout in the last hour of polling during the assembly election and sought details of the number of votes cast after 5pm on Nov 20. "Our faith in the recently concluded electoral exercise is shaken and depreciated. We have reasons to believe that the election was not inducement-free and transparent," Ambedkar wrote.
The state witnessed the highest voter turnout in 30 years, crossing more than 65%. Ambedkar's letter mentioned the increase in the turnout during the last hour on the polling day. "Between 5pm and 11pm (on the polling day), the total increase in the gross number of total votes polled is 65,97,708.
What is more surprising is that a few hours before counting, again there was an increase of 9,99,359 in the total votes polled. These 'late' figures are not only surprising but also raise questions on the electoral process," Ambedkar said. As per the process, after the deadline of 6pm for voting, if electors are still in queue, they are given token numbers for record.
Ambedkar sought details of these token numbers from various poll booths. "We hope that our questions are answered as the entire state is looking forward to these answers," he added..
