"Can't Accept Verdict": Congress Raises Doubts Over Haryana Counting

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

Earlier in the day, 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. You can see examples of it already playing out on social media. Our fear is also that such narratives can then be used by these mala fide actors to influence processes where counting is still underway i.e. in most of the counting centres," senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh wrote.

The Election Commission dismissed the charges and said approximately 25 rounds across all constituencies were being updated every five minutes.

In its response, the poll body also said it "unequivocally rejects your (Mr Ramesh's) attempt to surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated malafide narratives".

Addressing a press conference around 5 pm, Mr Ramesh said, "The results in Haryana are totally unexpected, completely surprising and counter-intuitive. It goes against the reality. It goes against what the people in Haryana had made their mind up for, which was for change and transformation. Under these circumstances, it is not possible for us to accept the results that have been announced today. What we have seen today in Haryana is a victory for manipulation, a victory for subverting the will of the people and it is a defeat for transparent, democratic processes. The chapter on Haryana is not complete." 

"All afternoon, I have been in touch with the Election Commission. They have replied to my complaints, I have replied to their reply. We have received very serious complaints about the process of counting and the functioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in at least three districts in Haryana. There are more that are coming in. This information is being collected and we hope to present this to the Election Commission today or the day after," he added.

'Victory Snatched'

Answering questions on whether the party needed to introspect given that 16 sitting MLAs had lost in Haryana and the elections in Jammu and Kashmir were won only in an alliance with the National Conference, Mr Ramesh said the time for that will come, but added, "The most important thing now is that victory has been snatched for us. The system has been misused."

The Congress leader said, based on initial reports, there are at least 12-14 seats in Haryana, where serious questions have been raised by candidates, calling into question the integrity of the counting process and the functioning of the EVMs. On whether the party would take legal recourse, Mr Ramesh said the Election Commission is its first stop and it would take a call on what else needs to be done after that. 

"There are serious questions on the integrity of the instruments of this system, namely EVMs, and the extraordinary pressure that has been brought to bear on local administration officials. Haryana has been a 'double-engine' government, so it was a 'double-engine' pressure. People who were leading with healthy margins have lost by 50, 100, 250 votes. This can be explained only by manipulation and pressure," he fumed. 

'Battery Issues'

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

"EVMs whose batteries were at 99% had results which went against us and those that weren't touched and had batteries at 60-70%, which is natural, had our candidates winning. Our candidates have also submitted complaints to 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 haven't said all the machines are defective. We haven't even said all machines in Haryana are defective. But where there has been manipulation...  You tell me: these machines have been lying for so long, how can all of them have standard 99% battery? It's not like the complaints started in the afternoon, they were made even before a result came. Rao Narender Singh and our Panipat candidate had started calling us even when the leads were in our favour," Mr Khera added.

BJP's Take

After the exit polls had 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 straight time and predicted that the Congress would blame EVMs. 

"Aanth tareekh ko janata degi jawab, aur yeh kahenge EVM hai kharab (People will have their say on October 8, and they [the Congress] will blame the EVMs)," Mr Saini had said.