In an effort to increase transparency, foster research, and boost public trust in India’s electoral system, the Election Commission of India (ECI) unveiled the “world’s largest electoral dataset”, releasing 42 statistical reports on the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and 14 reports each on four state assembly elections on Thursday.
The Election Commission claims that these reports will be an invaluable tool for scholars, researchers, and election watchers around the world, allowing for in-depth examination and understanding of election regulations.
The dataset contains comprehensive data on electors by Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies, polling station counts, voter turnout by state or constituency, party-wise vote shares, women’s participation, gender-based voting patterns, regional trends, constituency summaries, national and state party performance, winning candidate analysis, and more.
An ECI official told ANI, “This exhaustive data set empowers stakeholders to slice and dice data for a granular level analysis with comparison from data sets of previous elections already available on ECI website. These reports will facilitate time-series analysis to track long-term outlook and shifts in electoral and political landscape.”
The ECI’s proactive approach to sharing this extensive dataset is expected to counter criticisms of non-disclosure by the poll body.
Highlights of the 42 reports on the Lok Sabha elections in 2024
- In 2024, there were 97.97 crore registered voters, up 7.43% from 91.19 crore in 2019. The number of votes cast increased from 61.4 crore in 2019 to 64.64 crore. Of these, 42.81 lakh were postal ballots, and 64.21 crore were EVM votes (32.93 crore were male, 31.27 crore were female, and 13,058 were third gender).
- Assam’s Dhubri had the highest turnout (92.3%), while J&K’s Srinagar had the lowest (38.7%), which was a considerable improvement over 2019’s 14.4%. Less than 50% of voters cast ballots in eleven parliamentary constituencies. The percentage of votes cast by NOTA decreased from 1.06% in 2019 to 63.71 lakh (0.99%). Voter participation among transgender people was 27.09%.
- In the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, there were 10,52,664 voting places, up from 10,37,848 in 2019. Only 40 voting places, or 0.0038% of the total, underwent re-election, a sharp decrease from the 540 that took place in 2019. 931 voters were served on average by each polling place.
- With 1,62,069 polling stations, Uttar Pradesh had the most, while Lakshadweep had the fewest, with just 55. Three parliamentary constituencies had more over 3,000 voting places, while eleven had less than 1,000. With 4,739 more voting stations than in 2019, Bihar saw the most increase of polling stations, followed by West Bengal with 1,731.
- There were 12,459 nominations submitted for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which is marginally more than the 11,692 that were submitted in 2019. After withdrawals and rejections, 8,360 of these were eligible to run, up from 8,054 in 2019.
- Malkajgiri, in Telangana, received 114 nominations, the most of any parliamentary constituency (PC), whereas Dibrugarh, in Assam, received just three (excluding Surat).
- Women’s involvement made notable progress in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Women accounted for 47.63 crore of the 97.97 crore registered voters, an increase from 43.85 crore in 2019, making up 48.62% of the total electorate as opposed to 48.09% in 2019. The state with the largest percentage of female voters was Puducherry (53.33%), followed by Kerala (51.56%). From 926 in 2019, the female-to-male electorate ratio increased to a record high of 946 per 1,000 male voters.
- In 2019, the number of women who cast ballots was 65.78%, more than the number of males (65.55%), and this was the second time in the history of the Lok Sabha that women outnumbered men. With 92.17% of women voting, Dhubri, Assam, had the highest turnout, followed by Tamluk, West Bengal, with 87.57%. The number of women running for office increased from 726 in 2019 to 800. With 111 candidates, Maharashtra had the most, followed by Tamil Nadu (77), Uttar Pradesh (80), and Maharashtra. But there were no female candidates in 152 constituencies.
- The number of registered third-gender voters increased by 23.5% from 39,075 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to 48,324 in 2024. The state with the most third-gender voters (8,467) was Tamil Nadu. Transgender people’s voter turnout almost doubled, from 14.64% in 2019 to 27.09% now. Additionally, the number of registered PwD voters increased significantly, rising from 61.67 lakh in 2019 to 90.28 lakh in 2024. From 99,844 in 2019, the number of overseas electors rose to 1,19,374, with 1,06,411 males, 12,950 females, and 13 third-gender voters.
- Six national parties took part, earning 63.35% of the total valid votes, according to the results. Only seven seats were won by independent candidates, who accounted for 3,921 of the total number of contestants. 3,905 of them forfeited their deposits, giving them 2.79% of the valid votes. Candidate deposit forfeitures increased from 6,923 in 2019 to 7,190 altogether. The sole uncontested parliamentary seat was Surat, Gujarat. There were 279 women among the independent contenders.
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