Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer terms report about 'additional votes' as "inaccurate, mischievous", writes to news website

CEO Maharashtra has written a letter to the Editor of 'The Wire' noting that allegations have been raised about additional counting of over 5 lakh votes in comparison to the total votes polled data released.

The letter said that the report is "misleading and inaccurate" and mismatch of over 5 lakh votes fails to account for postal votes.

"The report has attempted to mislead readers by mischievously comparing two different parameters, as the report has included 5,38,225 postal ballots in the votes counted which was not part of the votes polled data released by CEO Maharashtra," the letter said.

It said the results portal of the Election Commission of India (ECI) clearly displays "EVM votes" and "counted valid postal votes" separately for each assembly constituency.

"The story has chosen not to add postal ballots in the figure of polled votes on the voter turnout APP (VTA), which was verifiable and thus sensationalised an imaginary mismatch," the letter said.

It said report of mismatch in votes polled and counted in Ashti and Osmanabad constituencies is also "misleading and irresponsible reporting".

Maharashtra CEO clarified that the total votes polled in all 288 Assembly constituencies in EVM in Maharashtra state is 6,40,88,195, which has been shown as total votes polled.

"The fact is that 5,38,225 valid postal ballots were not added to this figure. When we add the 5,38,225 valid postal ballots to the 6,40,88,195 votes polled in EVM; the total votes polled comes out to be 6,46,26,420. The total votes counted on the day of the counting including postal ballots is 6,45,92,508. Hence, the total votes counted are not more than the total votes polled," the letter pointed out.

CEO Maharashtra said it is expected that the "factual position will be reflected "prominently" in the story to avoid any "misinformation to readers". (ANI)