The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday released the world’s largest electoral dataset for 2024 Lok Sabha and four State Assembly polls held this year. The move was aimed at enhancing "public trust" in the country’s electoral system at a time when the opposition has been raising doubts over its credibility after it changed its rules to restrict public access to CCTV footage of polling booths and other poll documents.

Sources in the election watchdog said since the One Nation One Election (ONOE) has been tabled in the Parliament and a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is monitoring it, this data will help the stakeholders to tread the path of ambitious simultaneous polls in the country. The EC officials asserted that such granular data is not shared by any of the election management bodies in democracies across the world. "This suo motu initiative is to enhance the public trust that constitutes the underpinning of India’s electoral system," the EC said.

In its 40 statistical reports related to LOk Sabha 2024 polls, released by the poll body on Thursday showed that the six national parties bagged over 63 per cent share of the total valid votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections held this year. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and National People’s Party (NPP) are the six national parties. Six recognised National parties, 47 State parties and 690 registered, unrecognised political parties contested the Parliamentary polls.

Besides, 3,905 independent candidates forfeited the deposits. Out of the 3,921 independent candidates, 279 were women, the EC noted.

The datasets cover a range of variables, such as details of PC/AC /State wise electors, number of polling stations, State/ PC wise voter turnout, Party wise vote share, gender-based voting behaviour. It also included State wise participation of women electors and much more.

"This suo moto initiative, is to enhance the public trust that constitutes the underpinning of India’s electoral system," the poll body said in the Statement. "The release of extensive data sets is also in furtherance of the Commission’s policy of maximum disclosure, greater transparency and accessibility of election-related data for all stakeholders including academia, research and the general public," it added.

The data showed Maharashtra had the highest number of women contesting candidates with 111 in the fray, followed by 80 in Uttar Pradesh and 77 in Tamil Nadu. But at the same time, out of the total 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, there were 152 where there were no women candidates.

The data showed a total of over 97.97 crore citizens had registered themselves as electors as compared to over 91.19 crore in 2019, an increase of 7.43 per cent. Out of these registered electors, 64.64 crore had cast votes in 2024, compared to 61.4 crore in 2019.  It also showed that 42.81 lakh postal votes were received but 5.35 lakh were rejected owing to various reasons, including late submission.

The data on Lok Sabha polls, 2024 and four Assembly elections, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, held alongside parliamentary polls comes against the backdrop of allegations of non-disclosure by the EC.

Referring to women participation in the polls, EC said the number of female contesting candidates was 800, compared to 726 in 2019. The data showed that total votes polled, using EVM and postal ballot option, stood at 64,64,20,869. Votes polled on EVMs alone stood at 64,21,39,275, with 32,93,61,948 male voters and 31,27,64,269 female voters. A little over 13,000 registered third gender voters exercised their franchise (27.09 per cent), according to the data. Nearly 43 lakh electors used the postal ballot option to vote.

The Dhubri parliamentary constituency in Assam registered the highest turnout of 92.3 per cent while Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir registered the lowest turnout of 38.7 per cent, compared to 14.4 per cent in 2019.

According to the dataset issued by the EC, as many as 11 parliamentary constituencies saw voting percentage of less than 50 per cent.Repolls, the EC pointed out, were held in 40 polling stations or 0.0038 per cent of the total 10.52 lakh polling stations as compared to 540 in 2019.

Referring to overseas Indian electors, EC said over 1,19 lakh such people were registered in the category, including 1.06 lakh men, 12,950 women and 13 third gender, compared to 99,844 registered overseas electors in 2019. Overseas Indian electors are those who are Indian citizens residing abroad due to various reasons and eligible to vote here. They have come to India to vote showing their original passport as a proof of identity.