Record 642mn voters participated in Indian general elections; Election Commission hails unsung heroes
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar addresses a press conference.
A day before the Lok Sabha elections 2024 results are set to be announced, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar hailed the unsung heroes who played a quintessential role in the elections and spoke about how India created a world record of 642 million voters taking part in the world's biggest exercise.
"We have created a world record of 642 million voters. This is 1.5 times voters of all G7 countries and 2.5 times voters of 27 countries in the EU," said CEC Kumar. "Voters scripted history in 2024. Over 31 crore women cast their vote. Over 64 crore votes have been cast in these elections," he added.
The Election Commission of India gave a standing ovation to all the voters who participated in the Lok Sabha elections 2024.
The commissioner, speaking about how the elections were made successful, said 1.5 crore polling and security personnel were deployed, 68,763 monitoring teams worked, 135 special trains were run, 1692 air sorties flew and fourlakh vehicles were used in the process.
Also Read:PM Modi hails India's progress in spiritual letter following 45-hour meditation in Kanniyakumari
"Over 68,000 monitoring teams, 1.5 crore polling and security personnel were involved in the world's largest electoral exercise," said CEC Rajiv Kumar.
"Nearly four lakh vehicles, 135 special trains and 1,692 air sorties were used in conducting 2024 Lok Sabha elections," he added.
He added that home voting was conducted for voters above 85 years of age. "We had kept a strict vigil that no words on women's dignity should be uttered by any political person," the CEC said.
Responding to social media memes in which election commissioners were called 'Laapata Gentlemen', CEC Rajiv Kumar said, "We were always here, never went missing."
J&K recorded highest voter turnout in last four decades: CEC
The CEC further said that the voter turnout recorded in Jammu & Kashmir was highest in the last four decades.
"Due to the meticulous work of the election personnel we ensured fewer repolls - we saw 39 repolls in Lok Sabha polls 2024 as opposed to 540 in 2019 and 25 out of 39 repolls were in twostates only," the CEC stated.
Watch:India general elections 2024: Political leaders vent eloquent ahead of counting of votes
He further spoke about identification, confrontation, and tackling of the 4Ms - Muscle, Money, Misinformation and MCC Violations.
"This is one of the General Elections where we have not seen violence. This required two years of preparation," said CEC Rajiv Kumar.
He further spoke about how AI-generated synthetic content and deepfakes were not found and added that the voter has emerged as the real winner.
"Election Commission made a record seizure record of almost Rs 10,000 crores during this election. This is nearly 3 times the value seized in 2019...Local teams were empowered to do their work," said CEC Rajiv Kumar.
(With inputs from agencies)