Ganesh Kendale
NEW DELHI: Congress on Tuesday refused to accept Haryana verdict, claiming there were serious complaints about the integrity of the counting process and functioning of EVMs in several constituencies.
Alleging a “conspiracy”, Congress blamed the EVM batteries, saying the count from machines with the fully charged ones had Congress in the lead, while those with “60%-70%” charge appeared to have been manipulated to favour BJP.
Congress spokespersons Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera also alleged that the EC website delayed showing data when Congress appeared to gain lead.
Rejecting the charge, EC said it “unequivocally rejects” the attempt to “surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated, malafide narratives”. In its reply to a letter from Ramesh, it said nothing was on record to substantiate “your ill-founded allegation” of slow uploading of trends by EC.
Sharing details of completed and pending votes during counting rounds in both Haryana and J&K, the poll body said approximately 25 rounds across constituencies were being updated every five minutes, “which testifies dissemination of counting process in a speedy manner”.
Earlier, Ramesh said, “Democracy has lost and the establishment has won”. He said the results in Haryana were “totally unexpected, completely surprising, and counter-intuitive”.
“There are serious questions about the instruments of the system, namely the EVMs and also the extraordinary pressure on local administration officials. It is a double-engine pressure of the state govt and the Centre,” he said.
Khera said complaints had been received from places like Hisar, Mahendragarh and Panipat pertaining to possible manipulation of EVMs. He said some candidates referred to some EVMs having 99% battery strength after many rounds of counting and the results from all such machines went against Congress. He said machines whose battery strength was normal, between 60% to 70%, showed Congress candidates to be winning.
EC sources also countered allegations on battery life of EVMs, saying the machines ran on alkaline batteries. “Initially, the battery provides a voltage between 7.5 and 8 volts. Hence, the battery capacity is displayed as 99% when the voltage is above 7.4,” an official said. With the use of EVM, its battery capacity and consequently the voltage decreases. As the voltage goes below 7.4, the battery capacity is displayed as 98% to 10%, the official said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said on X, “After speaking to our workers on the ground, getting complete information and checking facts, the party will give a detailed response.”
