The historic victory for the Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra has left the Maha Vikas Aghadi in disbelief. Some like Sanjay Raut outright refuse to ‘accept’ the outcome, some like Fahad Ahmed blaming EVM batteries, others are rushing to the Supreme Court to seek ballot paper voting as a coping mechanism. Even after leftist propaganda outlet The Wire’s attempt at giving some empirical backing to those questioning the mandate and still trying to find foul play in the voting process and numbers was debunked by the Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, TV journalist-turned-YouTuber Abhisar Sharma is peddling the same lies.
Fake news started by Wire now viral across ecosystem
— Abhishek (@AbhishBanerj) November 28, 2024
Wire removed postal ballots and asked if there is mismatch of ~5 lakh votes
Wire got caught and deleted its tweet
But this video by Abhisar Sharma repeating this rumor has almost 1 million views!
How to stop this now? pic.twitter.com/VBhrJsZNUZ
On 27th November, Congress-friendly YouTuber Abhisar Sharma published a video on his YouTube channel in which he repeated the same lies The Wire published in its removed propaganda piece. Much like The Wire, Sharma claimed that the final voter turnout in the Maharashtra assembly elections stood at 66.05%, accounting for 64,088,195 votes cast. This included 30,649,318 female voters, 33,437,057 male voters, and 1,820 voters categorized as “others.” However, Sharma claimed that the total number of votes counted was reported as 64,592,508—an excess of 504,313 votes beyond the total number of votes cast. Citing the incorrect data of several seats including Kannad, Sharma tried to cast aspersions on the integrity of the election commission and accuse them of foul play in the voting process and counting to accuse the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance of winning elections by fraudulent means.
However, CEO Maharashtra had already debunked the more-votes-polled-less-counted and vice versa lies peddled by The Wire and the leftist ecosystem and said, “In this regard, it is brought to your notice that the report is misleading and inaccurate, written and published in haste without accounting for the accurate details. 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 results portal of ECI displays ‘EVM votes’ and ‘counted valid postal votes’ separately for each AC (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.”
It highlighted that 6,40,88,195 votes were cast in all 288 Assembly seats in the state’s EVM, which has been “mischievously” displayed as the overall number of votes cast and noted, “The fact is that 5,38,225 valid postal ballots were not added in 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.”
CEO Maharashtra also explained why, in certain ACs, fewer votes were counted than those required by the established procedure and clarified, “The EVM counting is not taken up if Mock Poll Data was not cleared from the Control Unit of the Polling Station before actual start of Poll or if there is non-display of result in the display panel of Control Unit or there was mismatch in data reported in Form 17C and votes recorded in EVM due to clerical or typing human error. In such cases, as the winning margin was higher than the total votes polled in these Polling Stations, counting of VVPAT Slips of these Polling Stations was not done as per instructions contained in Para No.7(iv)(b) of ECIs letter dated 19.07.2023.”
Despite the Election Commission debunking The Wire’s fake claims, Abhisar Sharma peddled the same lies in his video which has not been removed. The propaganda video published by Abhisar Sharma currently has over 9 lakh 60 thousand views.
In the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly Elections, Voting percentage at 5 pm was 58.22% (approximate) and the final voting percentage was 66.05%.
— ChiefElectoralOffice (@CEO_Maharashtra) November 28, 2024
This is normal as voting continues even after 6 pm, till the last person who stood at the queue at 6 pm votes.
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On Thursday, the CEO of Maharashtra further explained the voting percentage maths and said, “In the 2024 Maharashtra Assembly Elections, the Voting percentage at 5 pm was 58.22% (approximate) and the final voting percentage was 66.05%. This is normal as voting continues even after 6 pm, till the last person who stood at the queue at 6 pm votes. Even in 2019, the percentages were 54.43% (approx) at 5 pm and 61.10% at the final. Many voters come in the evening in urban and semi-urban areas, which constitute a large chunk in Maharashtra. It is important to note that two-hourly voter turnout information on the day of poll upto 5 pm is based on oral telephonic communication only. On the other hand, Form-17C which is given at the ‘Close of Poll’ to polling agents, matches with the final percentage and votes counted. Information in Form-17 C is matched by the Candidate’s counting agents while counting.”
