As per the Election Commission (EC) data, the number of registered voters for the November 20 state polls was 97,793,350, while 64,592,508 people cast their vote. In the General Election, the number of registered voters was 92,890,445 and the votes polled were 56,969,710.
Going by the numbers, the number of registered voters in the state increased by nearly five million (4,902,905), while the number of votes cast went up by over 7.5 million (7,622,7980.
| S.No. | Lok Sabha election 2024 | Maharashtra polls 2024 | |
| 1 | Voters registered |
92,890,445
|
97,793,350 |
| 2 | Votes cast | 56,969,710 |
64,592,508
|
| 3 | Votes for Mahayuti | 24,345,345 | 31,107,146 |
| 4 | Votes for MVA | 25,015,819 | 21,741,731 |
CNBC-TV18.com spoke to an official in the EC to understand the numbers game. Kiran Kulkarni, Additional Chief Electoral Officer, Maharashtra, said, “Updating electoral rolls is a regular process done through Form 6, 7 and 8. This year, it was done twice due to the Lok Sabha and state elections.”
Form 6 is for registration of first-time voters. Form 7 is for deletion of names from the rolls, and form 8 is used to change a voter’s registered constituency.
On the question of the votes cast increasing by over 7.6 million compared to the Lok Sabha polls, Kulkarni said, “The voting percentage increased by 6% in state polls. Also, we ran extensive campaigns for voter awareness, and political parties too appealed to people to exercise their franchise.”
But the Opposition, Maha Vikas Aghadi, is crying foul following its debacle in the elections.
The Congress raised with the EC “serious and grave inconsistencies”, which it said were being revealed in the data relating to the polling and counting processes for the state polls.
The party flagged two issues: the arbitrary deletion of voters and the subsequent addition of over 10,000 voters in each constituency from the final voter lists and an inexplicable increase in voting percentages between 5 pm and when the EC declared the final vote percentage.
“With this exercise of unchecked and arbitrary deletion and consequent insertion of voters, the state of Maharashtra witnessed an unprecedented increase of an estimated 47 lakh voters being added to the electoral roll from between July 2024 — November 2024,” the Congress said in a memorandum.
The Congress also pointed out that out of the 50 Assembly seats, where there was, an average increase of 50,000 voters, the ruling Mahayuti secured victory in 47.
On November 27, NCP (SP) leader Rohit Pawar raised questions over electronic voting machines’ (EVMs’) credibility, citing the rise in voting percentage. “There has been a huge rise in the voting (percentage). In comparison to Parliamentary elections, 76 lakh more have voted in Assembly elections. We need to investigate that. There are a lot of complaints against EVMs,” Pawar told ANI.
The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance decimated the MVA, winning 230 seats in the 288-member House. The Opposition alliance won just 46 seats.
