Election Commission’s press conference a day before the results, told how many crores of people voted, said- now we will conduct elections in the valley

A day before the crucial results of the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, the Election Commission of India (ECI) highlighted the efforts made by the poll body to conduct free and fair elections. This is the first time that the poll body has held a post-poll and pre-result briefing. Addressing the media, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar emphasised on the success stories of large participation of elderly and women voters in the voting process and said that India has set a world record with 64.2 crore voters, including 31.2 crore women, participating in the Lok Sabha.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that the counting of postal ballots will start first. Half an hour after that, we will start counting EVMs. There is no doubt about this. On the allegation of Congress leader Jairam Ramesh that the Union Home Minister called the DM/RO (Returning Officer), Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said, “How can this happen? … Can anyone influence them (DM/RO)? Tell us who did this, we will punish him… It is not right that you spread rumors and bring everyone under suspicion.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said, “If post poll violence happens anywhere, then for this we have decided for the first time that even after MCC, paramilitary forces will remain in some states. We will start the process of assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir very soon. Giving information about the counting process adopted to declare the results of the Lok Sabha elections on June 4, Rajiv Kumar said that the entire counting process is completely robust. It works like clockwork. Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that due to the careful work of the election personnel we ensure fewer re-polls – we saw 39 re-polls in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, while there were 540 re-polls in 2019 and 25 out of 39 re-polls were held in only 2 states.