The fact-finding committee of the Congress party looked upon the party's loss in the Haryana Assembly elections, on Monday, and released an 'interim report' revealing alleged discrepancies in the EVMs during the votes counting.
"Every survey was in favour of Congress before the Assembly polls, the atmosphere in the state was in favour of Congress. But results were opposite," head of the eight-member committee and party's senior leader Karan Singh Dalal told the media while spelling out various reasons for party's poll loss for which he also trained guns on the ruling BJP for misusing government machinery in its favour.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power for a third consecutive term winning 48 seats, with the Congress winning 37 seats, the INLD two while three seats were won by Independents.
Dalal alleged that "the issue of batteries of EVMs having remained charged even up to 99 per cent was registered by the Congress and the counting having been slowed down was also an issue".
"Further detailed analysis depicts the mismatch of EVM votes at various booths. The hike of votes in areas where BJP won with slender margins and the increase of 10.52 per cent and 11.48 per cent EVM votes in Panchkula district and Charkhi-Dadri district respectively after the end of the polls are other serious indicators," he alleged.
"All these pointers together indicate that there has been some serious manipulation in the process," he claimed, adding, "Conduct of ECI is not above board and it lacks transparency. Its approach is lackadaisical".
While the Congress had levelled several allegations immediately after poll results were out, the Election Commission had then rejected allegations levelled by it over "irregularities" in Assembly polls, saying the party was raising "the smoke of a generic doubt" about the credibility of an entire electoral outcome as done in the past.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Dalal said, "Data suggest that the gross mismatch in the figures of votes polled and made available immediately after polling and then day later coupled with the failure of the ECI to abide by its legal obligations and provide 17-A, 17C forms to all candidates that are the ultimate arbiter/proof of votes polled is a pointer to the fact that either EVMs have been tampered or EVMS themselves changed/replaced which makes the entire exercise unreliable/suspect".
He further questioned why the EC website did not have figures on the total number of votes polled by candidates and only the vote percentage.
Dalal said the EC declared the poll percentage at 7 pm polling day on October 5, which was "61.19 per cent, at 11.45 pm of polling day it was 65.65 per cent while at 8.46 pm on October 7, it was 67.90 per cent".
"Even while giving out the Voter Turnout percentage, the ECI in its first two press releases on October 5, 2024, declared the district-wise consolidated poll percentage for the state as a whole. It is best known to the ECI as to why did not reveal the constituency-wise poll percentage on these two occasions," he stated.
He further said, "The ruling BJP wins 37 seats out 44 with a strike rate 84.09 per cent in 10 districts of Haryana and in the rest of the state's 12 districts, the BJP got only 11 seats out of 46 at a strike rate 23.91 only".
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