The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Friday that it was not in favour of a change to the existing booth-wise system of counting votes.
Responding to a PIl advocating for a cluster-counting method by which total votes of each candidate is together released in the Constituency instead of it being declared booth-wise, an affidavit filed by the Centre informed the Court that a Group of Ministers headed by Home Minister had met in September last year to decide against the proposed scheme.
The Centre said “Counting of booth-wise votes polled by a candidate would perhaps be more beneficial and useful since it would facilitate the candidates and parties to find out the areas where they have shown better result and where they have not shown good result so as to work more for that area by bringing more development activities to impr-
ove their performance in future.”
The PIl filed by Punjab-based lawyer Yogesh Gupta stated that the declaration of result of every polling booth strikes at the root of right to privacy attached to voting.
The EC maintained that introducing the totaliser system for counting votes required amendment to Rules, which the Centre alone is empowered
to do.