Shocking: Kejriwal as EC yet to declare final voter turnout for Delhi polls

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said the Election Commission’s delay was “absolutely shocking” and wondered why the poll panel was not releasing the final voter turnout figure several hours after polling got over.

“Absolutely shocking. What is EC doing? Why are they not releasing poll turnout figures, several hours after polling?” Kejriwal questioned in a tweet.

The last voting percentage given by the Commission on Saturday night was 61.46 per cent. The voting in the national capital to elect a new government ended at 6 pm on Saturday, after a low voter turnout in the morning. Gradually as the day progressed, more and more people in Delhi visited polling booths to cast their vote.

Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh said that this is perhaps the first time in the country’s history that the Election Commission is not ready to release the voter turnout data, after the completion of the polls. “The percentage of voting in Delhi elections is what the people of Delhi and the country want to know. Why is the Election Commission taking so long to tell the voting percentage? Within 1 hour in the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission reveals the voting percentage, why so much delay in a small state like Delhi?” Singh asked.

The Delhi Assembly election 2020 was held in a single phase on February 8. Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) fielded 24 new faces for the polls.

Exit polls for the Delhi assembly election have forecast a comfortable win for the ruling dispensation—the Aam Aadmi Party. The AAP had scored an overwhelming victory in the last assembly polls in 2015, winning 67 seats in the 70 member Assembly and reducing the Bharatiya Janata Party to just three seats. In the last assembly elections in Delhi, the Congress had drawn a blank.

The election results will be declared after the counting of votes on February 11.