700 citizens file plea with EC for free & fair election

New Delhi: Around 700 citizens, from different walks of life, filed a petition to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday, seeking transparency in the Feb 5 Delhi elections by timely publication of election-related records, including the authenticated record of voter turnout.The petitioners included activists, former information commissioners, Supreme Court lawyers, academics, former civil servants, among others,"We are writing to request you to take appropriate measures to ensure transparency in the Delhi assembly elections. We urge the ECI to ensure the timely publication of election-related records, including the authenticated record of voter turnout. In the 2024 general elections and the recently-concluded state elections, various concerns arose about voter turnout data and differences between votes polled and counted. While we perused the materials put out by the ECI to address some of the concerns, we believe that in order to ensure voter confidence in the electoral process, it is critical to place in the public domain authentic and certified records, " stated the petition. The petition urges ECI to publish on its website: Form 17C (Part I), Form 17C (Part II), Form 20 - The Final Result Sheet, and information on the number of slips issued to electors at the closing hour of the poll. Form 17C (Part I) gives a record of the voter turnout at the polling station and total votes polled as per the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM). Form 17C (Part II) states the number of votes recorded for each candidate and verifies if the total votes recorded for all candidates match with the number of votes recorded in the EVM. Form 20 is the final result prepared by the returning officer of each constituency.Petitioners included social activists Anjali Bharadwaj, Amrita Johri, Harsh Mander, advocate Prashant Bhushan, former diplomat Ashok Sharma, former chief central information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, Prof MM Ansari, economist Smita Gupta, ex-bureaucrat Aditi Mehta, and Urdu poet and scientist Gauhar Raza, among others. TNN