What is ECI’s response to BJD’s demand for audits of election processes?

Having suffered a shock defeat in the last assembly election in the state, held simultaneously with the Lok Sabha elections, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is pressing for reforms in the electoral processes. In a memorandum to the Election Commission the regional party, which is the principal opposition in the state, has demanded a periodic “process audit” of elections by independent auditors.

The memorandum submitted to the EC on 11 March 2025 had reminded the Election Commission of India that it had failed to respond to the party’s earlier letters on the issue of vote discrepancies detected in elections held last year.

Sources in Biju Janata Dal (BJD) now confirm that a reply to its demands has been received from the Election Commission of India, but say that details shall be disclosed only after the reply has been carefully examined.

The BJD delegation’s last visit to the EC coincided with party president and former chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s meeting with senior DMK leaders, former Union minister Dayanidhi Maran and Tamil Nadu industries minister T.R.B. Rajaa in Bhubaneswar on the delimitation controversy. Patnaik addressed the meeting of all party leaders in Chennai on 22 March as well.

In the past, he had consciously avoided aligning with any political group —though he maintained good relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and helped out the BJP-led NDA in Parliament on several crucial issues.

All that seems to have changed with the BJD’s defeat in the 2024 elections, which has forced it to sit in the opposition for the first time in the last 24 years.

“The BJP wants more seats in northern India and some other regions where the BJP is strong, while reducing the number of seats in the South. In Odisha, where they have won by fluke and rule by a slender majority in the assembly, they may also gain from this exercise because they remain apprehensive about the future,” said former BJD MLA Latika Pradhan.

Pradhan reiterates her party’s demand for electoral reforms. “But I don’t have much faith in the EC. I don’t expect much from it,” she said, while underscoring the need for making the electoral process more transparent.

The BJD’s memorandum to the EC said, 'We had mentioned in our earlier memorandum that discrepancies indicated therein were unusual and showed that there was either machine (EVM) error or manual error (during data entry) or process error or a combination of all these.

'Since doubts have been raised in the minds of voters about conduct of free and fair elections on account of such discrepancies, which further get strengthened due to non-furnishing of Forms 17C Part I & II despite repeated written requests since last seven months, the BJD would like to suggest/demand the following in the interest of free and fair elections in the country.'

The memorandum goes on to make a number of suggestions — the most important of them being the conduct of a periodic 'process audit' of the entire election process by independent auditors and making their reports public, as is the practice in several countries where democratic elections are held.

The party also demanded that a mechanism be developed for involving citizen groups in co-monitoring the election process from beginning to the end.

“Put in a mechanism for conducting concurrent audit during polling at booth level as well as during counting after satisfactory completion of which the results should be declared. Concurrent audit can be done in almost real-time so that there is no undue delay in the declaration of results,” the memorandum demands, noting that “tallying of all VVPAT slips with the EVM count in every booth is now possible with advanced counting machines now available”.

The memorandum, signed by BJD Rajya Sabha members and the party’s coordination and activities committee chairperson and former minister Debi Prasad Mishra, also demanded that there should be a 30-day time limit for district election officers to furnish copies of Forms 17C Part 1 & 2 as well as all VVPAT slips to any citizen on the payment of prescribed fees.

“We believe that the above measures would increase the trust of the citizens on the fairness and transparency of the election process and the conduct of the election officials involved in the process,” said the memorandum.

In December 2024, the regional party in a letter to the EC had pointed out striking discrepancies such as disagreement between a Form 17-C filled by the presiding officer at the close of polls (recording total votes polled) and a Form 20 filled by the returning officer on the counting day (recording the total votes counted from the same EVM).

It had cited specific examples and demanded to know how the total number of votes counted by the returning officer could differ so much from the report of votes polled by the presiding officer when EVMs are used.

Stating that these variances raised questions about the integrity of the whole process, the party alleged that copies of Form 17-C were not made available to it despite repeated requests, even after the statutory period for retention of documents was over.

The BJD, which won 51 assembly seats in 2024 but failed to win a single Lok Sabha seat for the first time in its history, noted in its December letter to the EC that in simultaneously held elections, the total number of votes polled in a parliamentary constituency (PC) and the sum of votes polled in its constituent assembly constituencies (ACs) should be identical or very similar.

However, it found huge discrepancies between votes counted in a PC and its constituent ACs across all the PCs in Odisha.

Stating that vote discrepancies ranged from a difference of 4,056 votes in Dhenkanal PC to 3,521 votes in Kandhamal PC, and 2,701 votes in Balangir PC, the BJD has urged the EC to look into the matter urgently.