Congress raises doubts over Haryana census

Senior Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said the party's victory had been “snatched away”.

New Delhi:

The election results in Haryana were unexpected and shocking and the Congress cannot accept them, the party said on Tuesday, hours after early indications in its favor turned into a comprehensive victory for the BJP.

Earlier, the Congress had written a letter to the Election Commission complaining of an “unexplained slowdown” in updating results for the Haryana election.

“As you can imagine, this allows bad faith actors to spin narratives that undermine the process. Examples of this can already be found on social media. We also fear that such narratives can then be misused by these bad faith actors to influence processes where counting is still underway, i.e. in most counting centers,” wrote senior Congressman Jairam Ramesh.

The Election Commission dismissed the charge and said about 25 rounds in all constituencies were updated every five minutes.

In its response, the poll body also said that it “unequivocally rejects your (Mr Ramesh's) attempt to secretly give credence to irresponsible, baseless and uncorroborated malicious narratives”.

Addressing a press conference around 5pm, Mr Ramesh said: “The results in Haryana are completely unexpected, completely surprising and counter-intuitive. They contradict reality. It goes against what the people of Haryana had set out to do, viz. “Under these circumstances, it is not possible for us to accept the results announced today. What we have seen in Haryana today is a victory of manipulation, a victory of subverting the will of the people is a defeat for transparent, democratic processes. The chapter on Haryana is not yet closed.”

“I contacted the electoral commission all afternoon. She responded to my complaints, I responded to her response. We have received very serious complaints about the counting process and the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) “More are coming in at least three districts in Haryana. This information is being collected and we hope to submit it to the Election Commission today or the day after tomorrow,” he added.

“Snatched victory”

Asked whether the party needed self-reflection given the fact that 16 sitting MLAs had lost in Haryana and the Jammu and Kashmir elections were won only in alliance with the National Conference, Mr Ramesh said the time would come but added: “The most important thing now is that victory has been taken away from us. The system has been abused.”

The Congress leader said initial reports suggest there are at least 12 to 14 seats in Haryana and candidates have raised serious questions questioning the integrity of the counting process and the functioning of the EVMs. On whether the party would take legal action, Mr Ramesh said the Election Commission would be its first port of call and it would decide what to do after that.

“There are serious questions about the integrity of the instruments of this system, namely the EVMs, and the extraordinary pressure that has been brought to bear on local government officials. Haryana was a 'dual' government, so it was a 'double' government.” “The people who were leading by good margins lost 50, 100, 250 votes,” he complained.

“Battery problems”

Senior Congress MP Pawan Khera, who also addressed the press conference, said the party has been constantly receiving complaints from Hisar, Mahendragarh and Panipat districts and cited the example of Narnaul candidate Rao Narender Singh.

“EVMs whose batteries were at 99% produced results that were against us and those which were not touched and whose batteries were at 60-70%, which is natural, gave victory to our candidates. Our candidates have also lodged complaints with the returning officers.” We will approach the Election Commission soon… “Ye tantra ki jeet hai, loktantra ki haar hai” (This is a victory for the system and a defeat for democracy,” he claimed.

“We didn’t say that all the machines were broken. We didn't even say that all machines in Haryana are broken. But where there was manipulation… Tell me: These machines have been lying there for so long, how can all this be?” “It's not like the complaints started in the afternoon, Rao Narender Singh and our Panipat candidate had started, to call us even when the evidence was in our favor,” added.

BJP's opinion

After polls predicted a comfortable victory for the Congress, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini had said that the BJP would form a government in the state for the third consecutive time and predicted that the Congress would blame the EVMs for it .

“It is not easy to contact EVM (People will have their say on October 8 and they (Congress) will blame the EVMs),” Mr. Saini had said.