Lok Sabha elections live coverage: Complaints to Election Commission continue a day after final voting phase
A day after the conclusion of all seven phases of the 2024 general elections, a multiparty delegation from the opposition and another from the Bharatiya Janata Party visited the Election Commission of India to lodge their respective appeals for safeguarding the electoral process as the vote counting heads towards June 4. In a letter and memorandum dated June 1, the Congress Party and other opposition parties asked the Election Commission to issue step-by-step guidelines on how votes should be counted and to issue “urgent” directions to count postal votes first, as required by law. They also asked the Election Commission to retract its May 2019 letter stating that postal vote results no longer need to be finalized before the EVM counting.
The BJP also urged the Election Commission to ensure that all officials are “fully familiar with” the electoral body’s counting procedures and alleged that the Congress and “certain motivated civil society groups” are “trying to undermine the integrity of the ongoing electoral process”.
The opposition delegation included senior Indian National Congress leaders Manu Abhishek Singhvi and Salman Khurshid, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and general secretary D Raja, DMK’s TR Bahl and Social Democratic Party’s Ram Gopal Yadav. The letter from the opposition parties was signed by BJP chief Mallikarjun Kharge, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Yechury, Raja and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, AAP national president Arvind Kejriwal, Bahr and RDJ chairman Tejashwi Yadav, Jammu and Kashmir national president Farooq Abdullah, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha vice-president Kalpana Soren, Shiv Sena (UBT) general secretary Anil Desai, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya and Vikasir Insaan Party national president Mukesh Sahani. The memorandum on postal voting was signed by all Indian political parties represented through BJP MP Randeep Singh Surjewal.
