India’s Favourite Ganpati Bappa
If you think something is wrong
This page explains what we did to the counting and why, and how to reach us if you disagree. Read it before you write — most of what people ask is answered here, with the rule it comes from.
The recount, and why your count may have gone down
On 23 September we checked the counting and found very large numbers of votes arriving from single internet connections on single days. Rule 3 allows one vote per person per day, and Rule 7 lets us remove votes cast automatically.
We applied one rule to every entry in both contests, not a judgement on any of them: at most 11 votes from one connection in one day. The first 11 from every connection are kept; only what came after was set aside. We first set that limit at 29 and tightened it to 11 on 26 September, after voting closed, because 29 was still well above anything a household or an office produces by hand. The limit is the same number for every entry, and it was applied by one query across the whole season.
In total that set aside 3,108 votes across 11 entries. It changed some placings, including near the top, and the board you see now is the board after it.
This is not an accusation against any mandal. We do not know who cast those votes, and anyone can point a script at any entry’s page. Being the target of one is not evidence about the mandal.
What we promised, and what we are paying
From the first day we advertised ₹16,000 in prizes, of which ₹6,000 was promised to named places: ₹1,000 each to the top three mandals and ₹1,000 each to the top three home Ganpati.
We are paying ₹16,194, and every rupee of it goes to Ganpati — the entire advertised total and ₹194 over it, reaching 74 Ganpati instead of the 6 that were promised anything. Nobody who was promised something receives less than was promised: the top three of each contest were promised ₹1,000 and receive ₹1,011 or ₹1,001.
The odd endings are deliberate. Every amount ends in 1 — ₹1,011, ₹1,001, ₹551, ₹251, ₹101 — because a shagun is given with the one on the end: a blessing, not a payment. Rounding them to ₹1,000 and ₹550 would have been tidier and ₹74 cheaper. We would rather it be right than tidy.
Ten days of a committee’s work does not fit into any figure we can send by UPI, and we know it. This is a shagun, offered with respect — not a valuation of anybody’s Bappa.
74 Ganpati are paid — 7 mandals and 67 home Ganpati — ₹16,194 in all. Every mandal that qualified wins something.
What people ask
- My votes went down. What happened?
- Almost certainly the recount above. Write to us and we will send you the file for your entry, which lists every vote with its time and whether it counted. If we got it wrong, we clear the flag and re-run the count in public.
- Another entry is cheating.
- Tell us which entry and what you have seen. We check votes per connection, per device and per day, and how many were verified by email. We never share another entry’s figures with you, and we will not tell you what we did about it — the same protection you get.
- I think the result is wrong.
- The winners are decided by points, which are published, and ties by the rules’ tie-break order. Every certificate carries a number anyone can check on this site against the live figures.
- Did any two Ganpati finish level?
- Yes — fifteen times, involving 35 Ganpati. In every single case both are paid the same amount, because no tie falls across the line between two amounts. The highest rank any tie reached was seventh; the top six places in both contests were decided outright by the votes. A tie changed where a Ganpati appears on the list, never what it is paid.
- The rules page reads differently from this one.
- That is on purpose. We have left the rules page exactly as it was written the day voting opened, word for word, so that a screenshot anyone took then still matches it today — we would rather be held to what we published than quietly tidy it up afterwards. This page is where we set out what actually happened and what we decided, and it is the one to go by. Nothing decided by votes differs between them: every prize was counted from the votes themselves.
- Where did the rest of the ₹16,000 go?
- Into the Ganpati prizes, all of it. Only ₹6,000 was promised out — ₹1,000 each to the top three of both contests. The rest is why the list does not stop at six: it pays 68 more Ganpati, down to sixty-seventh place in the home contest, and lifts the top three above what they were promised. ₹16,194 in total, which is the advertised figure and ₹194 over it.
- How is the ₹16,194 split?
- By rank, in both contests. ₹1,011 to first, ₹1,001 to second and third, ₹551 to fourth through sixth, ₹251 to seventh through ninth, and ₹101 to every Home Ganpati from tenth to sixty-seventh. 74 Ganpati are paid in all — 7 mandals and 67 home Ganpati. Every qualified mandal wins something.
- Why do more home Ganpati win than mandals?
- Because far more entered. 548 home Ganpati took part and 104 qualified; 18 mandals took part and 7 qualified. The mandal list simply runs out — there is no eighth mandal to pay. The tiers are identical in both contests.
- The prizes are not what the rules said at the start.
- They went up, never down. The rules promised ₹1,000 each to the top three of both contests; the top three now get ₹1,011 and ₹1,001, and 68 more Ganpati win something that were not promised anything. Nobody receives less than was published.
- What is a “draw”, and is it the same as a prize?
- No. A draw is a tie — two or more finishing on exactly the same points, with nothing to separate them. A prize is what a Ganpati is paid for where it finished. Where a tie happened, every Ganpati in it is paid the same as the others in it: nothing was split, and nobody was paid less for being equal. See “Where two Ganpati finished level” below.
- I have not been paid.
- Prizes are paid by UPI after the winner signs in and gives a name and UPI ID, within 14 days of being told. If that window has passed, the rule is published and the prize goes to the next person in line.
- How do you have my IP address?
- We do not store it. Rule 8: what we keep is a one-way hash, and the connection column on every file is the first 8 characters of that hash. It cannot be turned back into an address.
Where two Ganpati finished level, both are paid the same
A draw means a tie: two or more finishing on exactly the same points, with nothing between them. It happened — fifteen times, and 35 Ganpati are in one.
Every one of them is paid exactly what the Ganpati it tied with is paid. Not a single tie falls across the line between two amounts, so not one had to be broken in order to pay somebody less than somebody equal to them. Where the points are equal, the money is equal.
Rule 4 still decides the order they appear in on the board — more verified votes ranks higher. That settled the line they stand in, never the amount they receive. And no tie reached the top three of either contest: first, second and third were decided outright by the votes, with a clear gap. Had a tie landed there, both would have been paid that place in full — ₹1,001 each, not ₹500 each.
So nothing was held back and nothing was split. We decided to put the whole sum into the Ganpati prizes and spread it as widely as it would go: ₹16,194 across 74 Ganpati, where only 6 were promised anything at all. That is where the money went, and why the list runs down to sixty-seventh place.
If you verified your email when you voted and you think something is owed to you, tell us. The button below reaches a person, and we answer every one.
How to reach us
WhatsApp is fastest and is read by a person. Please send it from the number or email the entry is registered with, so we can find it.
- Your Ganpati’s name, or its link
- What you think went wrong
- The date it happened, if you know it
What we will and will not do
- We answer before the result is finalised wherever it affects a placing, because after that, changing one means changing prizes that have been announced.
- We cite the rule by number, and every rule was published the day voting opened.
- We send you your own evidence, never anyone else’s.
- If we made a mistake, we say so and correct it in public, rather than quietly.
- We do not promise a placing, and we do not discuss another entry’s data with you.