The Trinamul Congress on Wednesday voiced concern over the Election Commission "not releasing" the actual numbers of voter turnout in the ongoing general elections, and questioned why the BJP is the only party that has not sought this information so far.

In a post on X, TMC Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale shared a copy of an application filed by him under the Right to Information on May 1 and said he has not received any reply from the Election Commission.

Gokhale had asked the Election Commission to furnish the details of the total number of electors, total number of voters, and total turnout for voting in the 102 parliamentary constituencies that went to polls in the first two phases.

Opposition parties had earlier raised the issue with the Election Commission demanding that it release the actual number of voter turnout for the different phases of elections.

Following this, the poll body had asserted that booth-wise data of the "actual number of votes polled" is available through Form 17C with the candidates soon after the voting ends.

Gokhale said while parties and candidates will compile Form 17C data, it is "very bizarre" as to why the EC has suddenly refused to disclose these numbers. He called it "sinister" and said it raises "many questions".

"Why is the Election Commission intentionally hiding voter turnout numbers? For the first time, the ECI has refused to publish data for the 'total number of voters' and 'total number of votes polled' for constituencies that have voted in Phases 1-5 during the current Lok Sabha Elections," Gokhale said in a post on X.

"I'd filed an RTI for the data on 1st May but there has been no response from ECI. For all Lok Sabha elections in the past, data of total votes polled was immediately published by the ECI," he said.

"Why is the Election Commission hiding these numbers and refusing to disclose them? Also, why is BJP the only party that has not yet demanded this data?" he said.

In a statement, the EC had said it attaches "due importance" to the timely release of voter turnout figures after each phase of the poll, and said not just constituency, but booth-wise data of the actual number of votes polled is available with the candidates, which is a statutory requirement.

The Congress also on Wednesday raised questions over the "big difference" between real-time voter turnout data and the final figures released by the Election Commission.

Congress leader and head of the media and publicity department of the party Pawan Khera said the difference is around 1.7 crore votes, and termed it as unprecedented.

"Voters are worried about the strange goings on in the Election Commission through the four phases of voting.

"First, the Election Commission takes 10-11 days to bring out the final figure of voting and then the difference between real-time data and the final figure turns out to be 1.7 crore votes. This is truly unprecedented," Khera said on X.

AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, "This difference of 1.07 crore overall translates into an increase of 28,000 in each LS seat. This is HUGE." "The discrepancy is maximum in states where BJP is expected to lose seats heavily. What is happening?" Ramesh said.

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