New Delhi: The Election Commission has dismissed the Congress' "ill-founded allegation" - that there is a delay in the poll panel publishing leads and results of the 2024 Haryana Assembly election on its website.
The EC said "approximately 25 rounds across all constituencies are being updated every five minutes," and said this was testament to the "dissemination of counting process in a speedy manner".
In a brief, and strongly-worded, statement released this afternoon - which included a timeline of publication of data for both Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir - the poll panel said it "unequivocally rejects your attempt to surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated malafide narratives". There is nothing on record to substantiate your allegations, the Congress was told.
The EC also reminded the Congress it had made similar allegations in June - while votes were being counted for the Lok Sabha election - and said vote-counting today "is unfolding in the presence of candidates, observers and micro-observers as per the rules".
Hours earlier the Congress filed its complaint; the party claimed there was "an unexplained slowdown in updating of results" on the EC's website for two hours till 11 am.
"As you can imagine this allows bad faith actors to spin out 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..."
"We request you to issue immediate directions to your officials to update the website with true and accurate figures, so that false news and malicious narratives can be countered immediately."
The Congress' letter to the Election Commission.
Minutes earlier the Congress' Jairam Ramesh said, "... we hope the Election Commission will answer our questions. The results of 10-11 rounds are out... but only four to five rounds are updated on the site." He also flagged those "trying to build pressure by sharing outdated and misleading trends..."
Congress' Haryana Flop
The Congress had raced into an early lead in Haryana as postal votes were counted, only for the BJP to stage a thrilling comeback late morning as ballots were opened. The ruling party then raced into a lead of its own, which it has held since; at 2.30 pm the BJP held 50 seats - four over the majority mark.
READ | Infighting To Jat Focus: 5 Factors Behind Congress' Haryana Fail
Early celebrations at the Congress' Delhi HQ ground to a halt as the party - which is set to win the first Jammu and Kashmir election in a decade - contemplated a third straight defeat in Haryana.
The party's senior leader in the state - Kumari Selja, who is also in the Congress' chief ministerial race - told NDTV the Election Commission will "have to answer" the question posed.
"Why is the counting going slowly? It was fine during the Lok Sabha election... so why is the counting going slowly now? It is the responsibility of the EC to tell the world why counting has slowed," she said.
READ | "Chief Minister Decision With High Command": Kumari Selja To NDTV
Mr Ramesh, however, insisted the party remains confident.
"There is no need to be disheartened..." he told ANI, "Mind games are being played. There is no need to be disheartened. We are going to get the mandate. Congress will form the government."
BJP Hits Back
The BJP's Sudhanshu Trivedi responded swiftly, declaring the complaining meant the Congress had "accepted defeat". "If Congress has started pointing fingers at Election Commission then we should understand they have accepted defeat..." he told reporters, "Per current trends I feel we are moving to an important win and Congress has started taking precautionary measures for future defeat."
The Congress had made similar complaints in June, when votes were being counted for the general election. Then Mr Ramesh implied the poll panel may have received "orders" to slow down counting.
In that case he had flagged apparent delays in publishing results for seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which account for over 120 seats between them and in which the ruling BJP (and its ally, the Janata Dal United) was facing a tough challenge from the Congress-led INDIA bloc and its allies.
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