The Election Commission of India (ECI) on June 3 announced that India had set a world record with an astounding 642 million (64.2 crore) voters participating in the Lok Sabha elections out of the total of 968 million registered to vote.
The ECI made the announcement at a press conference in New Delhi—its first-ever in the country's electoral history—just a day before the scheduled announcement of the marathon Lok Sabha elections that saw polling in seven phases over a span of 44 days, the second longest after the first parliamentary elections.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, who addressed the presser at the ECI headquarters in central Delhi, told a large group of political reporters about the electoral process, voter participation, and transparency measures.
At the very start of the conference, CEC Kumar expressed gratitude to all the voters and gave them a standing ovation for their active participation in “shaping the country's future.”
Kumar then emphasized the EC's commitment to transparency during the entire electoral process, while reacting the social media memes that referred to ECI officials as forever missing in action. “Social media meme pages are calling us ‘Laapataa (missing) Gentlemen.' But we were never laapataa, we were always here.”
Kumar also said the ECI will ensure that the next general election concludes by the end of April, having learnt a lesson from the relentless heatwave in India that has claimed the lives of dozens of people, including 33 on-duty poll workers.
The Election Commissioner noted that the Lok Sabha elections this year had fewer re-elections compared to the 540 re-elections in the 2019 polls.
"Due to the meticulous work of the election personnel, we ensured fewer re-polls. We observed 39 repolls in the Lok Sabha polls of 2024, in contrast to 540 in 2019. Additionally, 25 out of the 39 re-polls occurred in only two states."
He assured the public that the counting process, scheduled for June 4, would be conducted meticulously and in accordance with established procedures.
Kumar said that the ECI aims to dispel any doubts about manipulation by sharing exact details of votes periodically with the public, adding that this move is crucial to maintain trust in the democratic process and uphold the people's mandate.
The EC assured that it would ensure a fair and transparent counting process, notify election returning officers about farmers' concerns, and address any violations promptly.
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