Two candidates, Ravindra Waikar of Shiv Sena and Rabindra Narayan Behera of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha elections despite initially trailing in the electronic voting machine (EVM) counts. They secured more votes after the inclusion of postal ballots.

Waikar secured victory from the Mumbai North West seat in Maharashtra, while Behera won the Jajpur seat in Odisha. Postal ballots are typically used for voting by government employees posted far from their constituencies, prisoners, and individuals on election duty.

Postal ballot

Until the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the counting of postal ballots was conducted 30 minutes before the counting of votes from Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). All postal ballots had to be counted before the EVM counting process could be concluded.

After the 2019 elections, the Election Commission revised its guidelines due to the significant increase in the number of postal ballots following the introduction of the Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS). Additionally, there was a mandate to count VVPAT slips from five randomly selected polling stations.

On May 18, 2019, the Election Commission directed all chief electoral officers that the counting of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) “can go on irrespective of the stage of postal ballot counting.” This meant that EVM counting could proceed regardless of whether postal ballot counting had been completed or not.

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Ravindra Waikar

Waikar defeated his nearest rival, Amol Gajanan Kirtikar of the Shiv Sena (UBT), in Maharashtra’s Mumbai North West seat by just 48 votes, marking the lowest margin in the state.

Kirtikar of the Shiv Sena (UBT) held the lead for most of the day as EVM votes were being counted. However, the lead gradually diminished as the counting progressed. Ultimately, the difference was just one vote: Kirtikar received 4,51,095 votes against Waikar’s 4,51,094 votes.

After the EVM votes were counted and Kirtikar was leading by just one vote, the postal ballots were added to the tally.

After the postal ballots were counted, it was found that Waikar had 1,550 postal ballots cast in his favor, while Kirtikar had 1,501, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). This resulted in Waikar winning the election.

The final tally after all votes were counted showed that Waikar had 4,52,644 votes, while Kirtikar had 4,52,596 votes. The Shiv Sena (UBT) has stated that it will challenge the election result in court.

Rabindra Narayan Behera

Despite receiving 496 fewer EVM votes than his nearest rival Sarmistha Sethi of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), BJP’s Rabindra Narayan Behera ended up winning the election.

Behera won after the postal ballots were added. He received 5,280 postal ballots, whereas Sethi received 3,224.

The final count was Behera with 5,34,239 votes and Sethi with 5,32,652 votes.

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