In instances, the discrepancies were more than one lakh votes.

Hyderabad: Several opposition parties have expressed doubts over the results of 2019 Lok Sabha elections. A study conducted by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has confirmed these doubts.

The ADR study reveals discrepancies between the total votes and polled votes in 347 of the total 542 Lok Sabha constituencies. In some of them, the discrepancy in votes is higher than the winning margin.

In instances, the discrepancies were more than one lakh votes. In elections, every vote is important and a single vote can change the fate of the candidates in contention.

It may be recalled that Deccan Chronicle had reported on the mismatch of votes in the Telangana Assembly general elections in December 2018.

The study by ADR revealed that results of only 195 Lok Sabha seats had no discrepancies. Discrepancy in votes polled for 347 constituencies ranged from one vote (lowest) to 1,01,323 votes, about 10.49 per cent of the total votes.

There are six Lok Sabha seats, including two in AP — Guntur and Visakhapatnam — where discrepancy in votes turned out to be higher than the winning margin. Put together, the total volume of discrepancies is 7,39,104 votes.

TD candidate Galla Jayadev won over YSRC candidate Modugula Venugopal Reddy in the Guntur Lok Sabha constituency. The ADR study revealed that the winning margin of Jayadev was 4,205 votes and the discrepancy was 6,982 votes.

Similarly, in the Visakhapatnam LS seat, YSRC candidate M.V.V. Satyanarayana won against TD candidate M. Bharath. According to ADR, the winning margin was 4,414 in Visakhapatnam constituency, with a discrepancy of 4,956 votes.

In the case of Anantnag in Jammu & Kashmir, Khunti in Jharkhand, Koraput in Odisha and Machhlishahr in Uttar Pradesh seats also, discrepancies in votes were more than the margin of the winning candidate.

The Association for Democratic Reforms observed that the Election Commission itself admitted in its press note of June 1, 2019 that “the final data on votes counted has been made available within a few days of declaration of results.”

This makes it clear that the declaration of results on May 23, 2019 was not on the basis of authenticated and verified results, but on provisional figures, without determining the exact ballot count.

In Telangana Assembly elections too, such mismatch of figures changed the fate of the candidates.