The sudden upward revision of polling percentage by a whopping three points in the 18 Assembly seats that went to polls on April 4 has led Bengal Opposition parties to draw the attention of the Election Commission of India (ECI), requesting it to look into the matter.
“Increase by about 0.5-1 per cent is normal, but such a heavy increase is suspicious. Also, the fact that the State Election Office has declared it after two days of the elections points to something suspect” said OP Mishra of the Congress.
The Congress’ Pradip Bhattacharya has sent a letter to ECI seeking its intervention. “This could well be ghost voting and the ECI needs to be more cautious,” said BJP’s Samik Bhattacharya.
BN Chakrabarty a psephologist said, “It’s not usual for the vote percentage to go up so much even if we consider that there were long queues at the booths, well beyond 6.30 pm. Today when the technology is so fast there should not be any problem in calculating things in a matter of few hours.”
As the vote percentage points went up from 81.22 on the poll day to 84.22 when the CEO’s office made an upward revision of the polling percentage, the CPI(M)’s Md Salim urged the ECI to look for the “Trinamool moles inside the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office who may have a hand in the rising vote percentage beyond election hours.”
While the average rise was three per cent, at some places like Salboni, Joypur, Taldangara the vote percentage rose by a whopping 6 to 8 per cent.
Salim added, “The increase in the poll percentage points to foul play and the fact that Electronic Voting Machines had been tampered with.”