‘What is EC doing?’: After Delhi elections, Arvind Kejriwal slams delay in release of voter turnout data

A day after Assembly election voting, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter to say that it was “absolutely shocking” that the Election Commission had not released poll turnout figures.

“Absolutely shocking. What is EC doing? Why are they not releasing poll turnout figures, several hours after polling?” he wrote on Twitter.

In a press conference, AAP leader Sanjay Singh too speculated on the reasons behind the delay, saying that it might be an indicator of the fact that some “game” afoot.”

The entire media is waiting for this news, Delhi is waiting for this news, we are waiting for this news,” Singh said, adding that even during the Lok Sabha polls, the turnout data was announced on the same day.

“This is perhaps the first time in our 70 year history that EC has not given the figures,” he added.

Conventionally, the voter turnout is released on the same day.

It must be also be mentioned that there appeared to be discrepancies between the ECI app data and that released periodically by the Chief Electoral Officer on Saturday.

Saturday’s turnout was estimated as being lower than that of the 2015 polls, which saw a voter turnout of 67.12% with 8936159 electors.

Delhi’s Chief Election Officer Ranbir Singh had said on Saturday evening that the poll percentage was expected to go up as there were queues at several polling stations at the end of polling at 6 pm.

The officials said that elections took place peacefully and smoothly.

ECI spokesperson Sheyphali Sharan on Saturday — over three hours after the polls ended — shared a screenshot of the estimated voter turnout. It was, at the time, at 61.43%.

According to the ECI app, this number has now been updated to 61.85% (at the time of publishing this article).

No official turnout data however is yet available.