New Delhi: Serious questions have been raised over the integrity of the 2024 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, with economist and political commentator Parakala Prabhakar alleging “unusual” voting patterns, including a massive late-night surge in turnout that continued until 2 am in thousands of booths. At a press conference organised by Bharat Jodo Abhiyan at the Constitution Club here, Prabhakar presented data drawn directly from the Election Commission of India (ECI) portal and statements by the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, claiming that nearly 4.16% of total votes — roughly 17.2 lakh ballots — were recorded between 11:45 pm and 2 am on polling day, May 13, 2024. These late votes, he said, overwhelmingly favoured the NDA alliance.
The event, held on or around March 31–April 1, 2026, brought together Prabhakar, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, and policy expert Yogendra Yadav. It focused not on declaring the results invalid but on demanding transparent explanations and verifiable evidence from the ECI for what Prabhakar described as patterns that “hide in plain sight” yet defy normal electoral processes.
# Turnout Surge “After Polling Hours”: The Data Presented
Polling in Andhra Pradesh (held simultaneously for the Assembly and Lok Sabha) officially ended at 6 pm, though voters already in queue were permitted to cast ballots. According to ECI-released figures cited by Prabhakar:
- At 5 pm: 68.04% turnout.
- By 8 pm: Just 68.12% (a marginal rise of 0.08%).
- By 11:45 pm: Jumped to 76.50% (an 8.38% increase in under four hours).
- Final turnout (announced days later): 81.79%.
This implied that nearly 52 lakh votes were recorded between 8 pm and 2 am, with over 17 lakh of them after midnight alone. Prabhakar noted that, according to the CEO, voting was still under way in approximately 3,500 booths during the 11:45 pm–2 am window.
The arithmetic he presented raised eyebrows:
17.2 lakh votes across 3,500 booths in 135 minutes (2 hours 15 minutes) equals roughly 491 votes per booth.
That works out to 3.6 voters per minute per booth — or one voter every 20 seconds overall.
Accounting for mandatory EVM procedures (identity verification, inking, signing, dual voting for Assembly + Lok Sabha, and VVPAT slip display), Prabhakar highlighted the EVM’s reported 14-second reset time between voters (7 seconds per VVPAT for each of the two machines). This left, he calculated, “six seconds per voter, or three seconds per vote” for the entire process of a voter entering the booth, voting, and exiting.
He asked pointedly: “If 14 seconds are taken as machine timeout, is it possible to cast two votes in just six seconds? Can a voter realistically enter, cast their vote, and exit within that time?” Prabhakar emphasised he was not alleging fraud outright but questioning feasibility: “Something unusual appears to have occurred after 8 pm… Tell me, how is that humanly possible?”
# Procedural Questions: Queues, Tokens, Videography
Indian election rules allow voting beyond 6 pm only for those already in queue when gates close. The presiding officer must issue tokens, record the exact number of queued voters, and ensure full videography with clearly visible faces. Prabhakar challenged the ECI: If the last vote was cast at 2 am, that voter would have stood in line since 6 pm — an eight-hour wait. “Show me the tokens. Show me the presiding officer’s diary. Show me the videography,” he demanded. “If this was such a massive celebration of democracy, why isn’t there even a single image or video of people voting at 2 am?” He also asked why the ECI has not publicly identified the specific 3,500 booths involved.
# Broader Concerns on Transparency
Prashant Bhushan highlighted systemic issues, including the non-publication of booth-level Form 17C data (vote counts signed by polling agents), voter lists not being available in machine-readable format, and the absence of real-time records of post-6 pm queues. He called for mandatory full VVPAT slip counting and greater institutional accountability.
S.Y. Quraishi advocated forensic audits of Form 17C and Form 20 (final result sheets), same-day release of detailed polling percentages, and immediate public disclosure of booth-level summaries. He questioned why discrepancies sometimes appear between booth-level signed records and aggregated results.
Prabhakar stressed that all his data is from the ECI’s public domain and that he is “prepared to be challenged on every word, every data point.” He has raised similar concerns through civil society memorandums since 2017–18, with no responses, he claimed.
# Election Background and NDA Sweep
The 2024 Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls saw the TDP-led NDA (Telugu Desam Party, BJP, and Jana Sena Party) secure a landslide victory, winning 164 of 175 seats (TDP 135, Jana Sena 21, BJP 8). Chandrababu Naidu returned as Chief Minister for a fourth term, defeating the incumbent YSR Congress Party led by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. The final voter turnout was reported at around 81.79%. Prabhakar noted that the post-midnight votes in question went predominantly to the NDA.
# ECI’s Position
Sources in the Election Commission told India Today that no candidate or party filed formal complaints, appeals, or petitions regarding discrepancies during or immediately after the elections. They pointed out that the law provides clear remedies — including election petitions in the High Court — none of which were pursued in Andhra Pradesh. Bringing up the matter nearly two years later was described as “unconstitutional.”
Prabhakar countered that elections belong to citizens, not just political parties, and civil society has a duty to seek answers. He reiterated he is not seeking to overturn results but wants proof: “If the evidence proves everything is correct, I will shut up. My concern is… the integrity of the electoral process.”
As of now, the ECI has not issued a detailed public rebuttal to the specific data points and calculations presented. The allegations have sparked widespread debate on social media and among opposition circles, with some questioning the delay in scrutiny while others defend the ECI’s processes and point to the absence of contemporaneous objections from polling agents or parties.
The press conference has once again spotlighted long-standing demands for greater electoral transparency in India, including real-time data release, mandatory VVPAT verification, and public access to Form 17C. Whether the ECI will respond with the detailed records demanded — presiding officers’ diaries, queue videography, and booth-wise breakdowns — remains to be seen. For now, the “mystery in plain sight,” as some have called it, continues to fuel questions about one of India’s most decisive state election outcomes in recent years.
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