The provisional turnout in the recently concluded Kerala Assembly elections was 79.63%, with the service votes yet to be counted, state chief electoral officer Rathan U Kelkar said on Monday.
The announcement came after criticism from political parties, including the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and the Congress, that the final voter turnout figures in the state were not published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on time.
Kelkar rejected any “undue delay” in publishing the final turnout data, while stressing that the European Commission acted as quickly as possible in collecting and publishing the data. “The figures will be published once the returning officers complete the consolidation process,” he said, adding that cabin-level data has already been shared with agents of political parties in Form 17C.
The state chief executive said that 78.27% of eligible voters in Kerala turned up at polling stations to cast their votes in electronic voting machines. An additional 1.36% of votes were obtained through postal ballots, bringing the provisional turnout to 79.63%. However, he said that 53,984 votes are yet to be counted in service and the final turnout will be revealed after counting through EC index cards.
The total number of postal votes was 368,193 votes. Kelkar said the number includes 1,40,219 votes for senior citizens, 60,734 votes for persons with disabilities, 32,172 votes for people belonging to essential services and 1,35,068 votes for people who were on electoral duty.
Of the total number of 27,142,952 voters, as many as 21,243,942 of them registered their votes through electronic voting machines on polling day. This includes 11,303,410 women, 9,940,379 men, and 153 transgender people.
Voter turnout is the best in the state in nearly three decades.
He said that 96.72% of those eligible to vote at home exercised their right to vote in the state.
Earlier, in a letter dated April 12 and addressed to the ECI Gyanesh Kumar, Leader of the Opposition and Kerala Congress leader Sathisean had pointed out that even though three days have passed since polling ended on April 9, detailed and documented figures — including constituency-level polling data, constituency-level vote percentage, and postal poll statistics — are still not available on the official website of the Election Commission of India. “Prompt publication of such information is critical to ensure transparency, enable public scrutiny, and maintain confidence in the electoral process,” he wrote, urging the Commission to take immediate steps to publish full election data without further delay.
This concern has been echoed on the other side of the political spectrum as well. CPI(M) leader V. Sivankutty described the delay as “unusual”, saying that four days had passed since the elections and it was quite unusual that the ECI was yet to announce the final vote count. “The Commission must immediately publish the final count that combines votes recorded in electronic voting machines, service votes, postal ballots and votes cast at home,” he said, asking for clarification on the reasons for the delay, saying that “in the age of advanced technology, such a delay in data collection raises concerns about transparency.”
The four-day wait contrasts with the practice in previous elections, where constituency turnout data was usually available within a maximum of 48 to 72 hours of the end of polling according to results published by the Independent Electoral Commission. The IEC’s guidance states that final documented voter turnout figures must be published within one to three days after polling day.
Kerala voted in one phase on April 9 without repolling, meaning the data should have been available by April 12 at the latest.
Kelkar responded to these concerns when he spoke to HT, stressing that the time taken to release the final polling numbers was not unusual and that the data had not been deliberately withheld. “The figures will be published once the returning officers complete the consolidation process,” he said, adding that cabin-level data has already been shared with agents of political parties in Form 17C.
