Data shows more votes polled in certain booths than actual number of voters

Kolkata: Sensational data regarding the number of votes polled at several booths in the Nandigram Assembly constituency that surfaced on Thursday led to several questions on the reliability of the results announced by the Election Commission of India especially for the Assembly segment that witnessed a high voltage contest with Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee as the party's nominee.

Documents, including "Accounts of Votes Recorded" of different polling booths of "210-Nandigram Assembly Constituency", have revealed that more votes were polled at certain polling stations than the actual number of voters. One such document shows that as many as 799 votes were polled at the polling station housed at SN Roy School in Reyapara when the total number of voters was 676. Even the document (form-17C) showing 133 votes more than the total number of voters polled has been signed by the Presiding Officer.

It needs to be mentioned that Banerjee was initially announced as the winning candidate from Nandigram by 1,200 votes on May 2. Later, all of a sudden, an announcement was made stating that BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari had won by 1,956 votes. Banerjee had alleged that "some sort of mischief had taken place during the counting" as her defeat from Nandigram was next to impossible when her party witnessed landslide victory with a win in 213 Assembly seats. The matter eventually reached the Calcutta High Court.

Quite similar to that of the polling station at SN Roy School, 601 votes were polled (according to form number 17A) where there are a total of 705 voters at booth number 219. But the number of votes polled in EVM was 599. Again, all 721 votes were polled at booth number 118. Interestingly, the Presiding Officer did not put his signature on the document.

The form 17A of polling booth number 49A also brought to light that 502 votes were polled against a total of 572 voters. Interestingly, the number of votes polled in EVM was 503.

Out of 886 voters, the document shows that as many as 736 of them have cast their votes at booth number 75. But the record stated that 735 votes were polled in the EVM.

The documents also revealed that there was no polling agent at booth number 182. Such discrepancies were noticed at 40 such booths in the Assembly segment.