The tug of war over absolute voter turnout and Form 17 C

Training for polling agents on EVMs and Form 17 C raises transparency concerns in the 2024 general election.

It is 7 p.m. in the evening on a searing hot day in Delhi’s Sultanpuri area and Arun Kumar Garg is busy training a group of six to seven ground-level Congress workers for being booth agents for party candidates in the national capital for the Lok Sabha elections on May 25.

The heat doesn’t bother Mr. Garg, who says his party is in a race against time as they want to prepare the polling agents on all aspects specially on functioning of EVMs and now on the “much in news” Form 17 C.

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The Form 17 C, in simple terms, is the stamped certificate which is handed out to the polling agent of a candidate by the presiding officer of a booth and which contains the data on the absolute number of votes polled in that booth on the polling date as against the total number of registered electors along with many other details. It is this piece of paper which has become the bone of contention between the Opposition and civil society groups on one hand and the Election Commission of India on the other in the general election 2024.

The opposition heat stems from the fact that the ECI has not given out the absolute number of votes polled in any constituency in this general election unlike in 2019. Only voting percentages have been given that too after much delay in the first two phases. The ECI maintains that the Form 17 C (Part 1) which contains this detail about absolute number of votes polled among other information is supposed to be given only to the candidate, read polling agents, and not to the general public or even media.

In the scathing letter it wrote to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge the poll body said: “It may be noted that Commission is not legally bound to publish any voter turnout data at aggregate level of a constituency, a state or in a phase of election because voter turnout is recorded at polling station level in statutory Form 17 C which is prepared by the presiding officer and signed by the polling agents of candidates present. Copies of Form 17 C are shared with polling agents present immediately, as the strongest measure of transparency. So, candidates are aware and in possession of exact voter turnout data in absolute numbers even before it is known to the ECI”.

But are all candidates, specially, the Opposition, able to put up polling agents in all booths in their constituencies?