GUWAHATI: The Assam Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has raised concerns over the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) decision to discontinue the practice of including polling booth names in Form 20, the document that traditionally presents booth-wise election results.
In a statement issued on Friday, APCC Vice-President Bobbeeta Sharma questioned the transparency and fairness of the electoral process due to this apparent shift in protocol.
Sharma highlighted that this “shift” has been observed not only in Assam but also in other states such as Kerala (2021), Goa (2022), Punjab (2022), and Karnataka (2023).
Until 2021, Form 20 provided comprehensive information, including polling booth numbers, names, and the respective political parties of contesting candidates.
The statement from APCC expressed surprise at the discontinuation of this practice by the ECI.
Sharma said, “In the present status, ECI does not reveal the name of the polling booths while declaring results nor the name of the party to which each candidate belongs. Instead, it only assigns a number.”
Sharma believes that erasing booth names has far-reaching implications, extending beyond mere administrative changes.
The government, with access to this data, can conduct analyses, whereas it becomes challenging for other political parties, independent agencies, or research scholars to perform their own analyses, resulting in an unfair electoral landscape, she added.
The absence of booth names not only hampers the analysis of voter behaviour but also complicates assessments of Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) malfunctioning, according to Sharma.
She further added that the abrupt discontinuation of previous practices raises questions about what the ECI aims to “conceal from the citizens of India”.
The APCC statement calls for transparency and demands answers from the ECI regarding the necessity of omitting booth names and party affiliations from election result data.
The party asserts that providing equal opportunities for analysis is essential to maintaining the fairness of elections.
“ECI should also ensure that in the coming Lok Sabha elections of 2024, the Form 20 election results sheets will be published with polling booth number along with polling booth names as well as with candidate’s names mentioning political parties as was the practice earlier,” the statement added.
