**Summary:**
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has operationalized a new digital platform, ECINET, commencing with recent bye-elections held in five Assembly Constituencies across Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab, and West Bengal. ECINET, integrating over 40 of ECI's existing mobile and web applications, aims to provide timely and updated election information to voters and stakeholders. A key improvement observed during the bye-elections was the direct uploading of Voter Turnout Rate (VTR) trends by Presiding Officers (PROs) onto ECINET, replacing the previous manual process. This resulted in quicker information sharing, increased transparency, and a significant reduction in the time required to publish VTR trends. Furthermore, the implementation of ECINET facilitated the faster publication of Index Cards, which were made available within 72 hours of the declaration of poll results. The digitization of the Index Card process allows for most data fields to be automatically filled using ECINET inputs, drastically reducing the time previously required for manual data entry and verification. Index Cards, a non-statutory post-election statistical reporting format developed by the ECI, provide constituency-level data on candidates, electors, votes polled, party-wise vote share, gender-based voting patterns, and regional variations. These reports are accessible on the ECI website under the "bye-elections" tab at https://www.eci.gov.in/statisticalreports. ECINET is an initiative led by Chief Election Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi.
Key Entities Referenced
Election Commission of India: The constitutional body responsible for conducting elections in India, also referred to as ECI.
ECINET: A new digital platform integrating over 40 of ECI's existing mobile and web applications for election management and information dissemination.
Kerala: A state in India where by-elections were recently conducted and where ECINET was operationalized.
Gujarat: A state in India where by-elections were recently conducted and where ECINET was operationalized.
Punjab: A state in India where by-elections were recently conducted and where ECINET was operationalized.
West Bengal: A state in India where by-elections were recently conducted and where ECINET was operationalized.
Shri Gyanesh Kumar: Chief Election Commissioner of India, under whose leadership ECINET and other initiatives were undertaken.
Index Cards: A non-statutory, post-election statistical reporting format providing constituency-level election-related data, now generated faster through ECINET.
Election Commission
ECINET Operations started in Bye-polls
Election Commission releases Index Cards for bye-
elections in under 72 hours
Posted On: 25 JUN 2025 5:02PM by PIB Delhi
Election Commission of India has operationalised the new digital platform ECINET in the recently concluded
bye-elections in the five Assembly Constituencies in the states of Kerala, Gujarat, Punjab and West-Bengal. It
th
may be recalled that ECI had earlier this year on 4 May, announced the development of a new one-stop
platform, ECINET, integrating over 40 of ECI’s existing mobile and web applications. The bye-polls
witnessed the successful implementation of some of the modules of ECINET, which will become fully
operational in the coming weeks.
ECINET is one of the various initiatives of the Commission taken under the leadership of Chief Election
Commissioner Shri Gyanesh Kumar along with Election Commissioners Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr.
Vivek Joshi for the timely and updated disclosure of election information for the benefit of the voters and
other stakeholders.
A major achievement during the bye-polls was uploading of the VTR trends directly by the Presiding Officers
(PROs) on ECINET as against the earlier manual process. This enabled the quick sharing of information,
increased transparency and a significant reduction in time lag in publishing VTR trends. Through ECINET, it
was ensured that the PROs uploaded the final VTR figures before leaving their respective polling stations
which resulted in much faster availability of VTR trends on ECINET for the public. The streamlined,
technology-driven system was able to provide timely updates on the approximate voter turnout percentage
trends during the bye-polls.
Another major outcome of the introduction of ECINET has been the faster publication of Index Cards, which
were made available within 72 hours of the declaration of the poll results. The decision to digitise and fast-
track the process of generating the Index Card was announced earlier this month on the 5th of June. Under
the new system, most data fields in the Index Card are auto-filled using ECINET inputs. Before the
introduction of ECINET, the publication of Index Cards, used to take several days, weeks, or even months as
the data was filled and verified manually by the officials.
The Index Card, is a non-statutory, post-election statistical reporting format, developed during the late 1980s,
as a suo-moto initiative by the Commission to promote accessibility of election-related data at the
constituency level for all stakeholders, including researchers, academia, policymakers, journalists, and the
general public. The reports contain data across multiple dimensions such as candidates, electors, votes polled,
votes counted, party-wise and candidate-wise vote share, gender-based voting patterns, regional variations,
and performance of political parties. The reports can be accessed at the bye-elections tab on
https://www.eci.gov.in/statistical-reports.******
PK/GDH/RP
(Release ID: 2139577)