Congress' Haryana poll loss: Party's fact-finding committee releases 'interim report'

Chandigarh: The head of the Congress' fact-finding committee that went into the details of the party's shocking loss in Haryana Assembly polls released an 'interim report' on Monday alleging discrepancies in the electronic voting machines during counting of votes.

"Every survey was in favour of Congress before the Assembly polls, the atmosphere in 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 reporters here while spelling out various reasons for party's poll loss for which he also trained guns on ruling BJP for misusing government machinery in its favour.

The BJP returned to power for a third consecutive term winning 48 seats, the Congress won 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 in 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.

"..the conduct of ECI is not above board and it lacks transparency. Its approach is lackadaisical," Dalal alleged citing from the report.

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 whole. It is best known to the ECI as to why did not reveal the constituency wise poll percentage on these two occasions," he said.

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".