On Monday, research conducted by a poll watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) revealed discrepancies in vote counts in the Lok Sabha elections conducted in the year 2024.

According to the report, titled “Discrepancies between the votes cast and the votes counted in the 2024 Lok Sabha election: Multiple Perspectives” there were problems in 362 parliamentary constituencies where 554,598 votes counted were less than the actual votes cast.

The report continued that in 176 constituencies, the total votes were counted 35,093 more than the actual votes. It aimed to highlight the differences between the votes recorded by electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the counts reported by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the 2024 general elections.

The report has highlighted significant discrepancies in as many as 538 constituencies, except Amreli, Attingal, Lakshadweep, and Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu. Surat seat did not have any contest. “Hence the total discrepancies in 538 PCs are 5,89,691,” reads the report.

The ElCI has not given a reasonable explanation for announcing the results of the election before releasing final and accurate vote count data. Concerns are; disparities in votes credited based on EVM, increased voter turnout, non-declaration of the actual number of votes polled, unreasonable delay in releasing vote data, and data being pulled down from the ECI website, the ADR report read.

It also said that due to ECI’s failure to address these irregularities during the 2019 & 2024 Lok Sabha elections, voters have developed concerns. These apprehensions must be seriously addressed and put to rest,” it said.

“In order to uphold the voter’s confidence, it is necessary that the ECI should immediately disclose on its website scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part- I (Account of Votes Recorded) of all polling stations which contains the authenticated figures for votes polled, within 48hours of the close of polling,” the report read.

The ADR report suggested that to ensure election integrity, the ECI should publish the total number of voters, both registered and recorded by EVMs, for all parliamentary constituencies that have already voted. For fair elections, the ECI should also reconcile data accurately before the final results of any election are declared, it read.

The report also recommended that the ECI upload scanned legible copies of Form 17C Part-II, which includes candidate-wise results after counting for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. It also suggested disclosing voter turnout figures by constituency and polling station in both absolute numbers and percentages.

“In order to remove any/all apprehensions from the minds of the voters, ECI should provide the following information in the public domain for the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections and for all future elections i.e Statutory forms 17C, Form 20, Form 21C, Form 21D & Form 21 E,” it read.

As per the report’s suggestion, the ECI should investigate discrepancies from the 17th and 18th Lok Sabha elections and create a strong procedure for future investigations into election data discrepancies.

On 22 July, another report was released by the Maharashtra-based civil society group, Vote For Democracy, and revealed that there was a cumulative increase of 4.65 crore votes from initial estimates to final figures in the 2024 general elections. This increase may have benefited the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 79 seats across 15 states, the report claimed.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won 240 seats, a drop from its 303 seats in 2019. It did not reach the majority mark of 272 seats and needed its coalition partners to form the government. The elections, held in seven phases from 19  April to 1 June 2024, resulted in the BJP winning 240 seats, while the opposition I.N.D.I.A (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), led by the Indian National Congress, won 232 seats.