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- Published: October 11, 2024 22:25
New Delhi: Days after a Congress delegation met the Election Commission of India over the “unexpected” results of Haryana assembly polls, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday submitted a memorandum to ECI, and said he hopes that the body takes cognizance of the issue and gives appropriate instructions.
Taking to social media platform X, the party General Secretary in charge of communication, wrote, “On October 9, senior Congress party leaders submitted a memorandum full of complaints to the Election Commission. Taking it forward today, we have given an updated memorandum, highlighting serious and clear irregularities in the election process in 20 assembly constituencies of Haryana. We hope that the Election Commission will take cognizance of this and issue appropriate instructions.”
The 20 assembly constituencies of Haryana on which Congress has alleged that irregularities took place are Narnaul, Karnal, Dabwali, Rewari, Hodal, Kalka, Panipat City, Indri, Badkhal, Faridabad NIT, Nalwa, Rania, Pataudi (SC), Palwal, Ballabhgarh, Barwala, Uchana Kalan, Gharaunda, Kosli, and Badshahpur.
According to the memorandum, one of the issues that was faced by many Congress candidates was related to EVMs used in counting and their battery capacity.
“During our meeting, we had brought the Commission’s attention to the Assembly Constituencies (Haryana) where the respective INC Candidates had faced issues during the vote counting process. One of the issues faced by a significant number of our candidates was about EVMs and their Battery Capacity. These EVMs were used for counting of the votes polled during the Haryana State Assembly Elections conducted on 05.10.2024. In the INC Memorandum (dt. 09.10.2024), we had brought the Commission’s attention to at least 7 Assembly Constituencies,” the memorandum stated.
“In this representation, we have collated the additional 13 complaints/issues raised in the Assembly Constituency of Haryana and enclosed all the 20 complaints. The list of the 20 complaints from different Assembly Constituencies is – Narnaul, Karnal, Dabwali, Rewari, Hodal, Kalka, Panipat City, Indri, Badkhal, Faridabad NIT, Nalwa, Rania, Pataudi (SC), Palwal, Ballabhgarh, Barwala, Uchana Kalan, Gharaunda, Kosli, and Badshahpur,” it added.
The Congress party has requested the ECI to take action on the complaints, ensuring the sealing of EVMs with alleged irregularities.
“We request you to urgently take action on the enclosed complaints and ensure that all the EVMs from these constituencies are immediately sealed. It is further requested that detailed inquiry is initiated on our complaints and the same is completed in a timebound manner,” the memorandum stated.
The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) is poised to form the government for the third consecutive term in Haryana after the party secured 48 seats in the Haryana assembly elections. This is the party’s biggest victory in assembly polls in the state.
The Congress won 37 seats while the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) won two seats. Independents won three seats.
On October 9, a delegation of the Congress party met ECI and demanded the sealing of those EVMs, which allegedly had a high battery percentage despite being used the whole day, until the investigation was completed in the matter. Earlier, expressing concerns over the results of the Haryana assembly election, the Congress party had described it as “totally unexpected, completely surprising, counter-intuitive and against ground reality and said “it is not possible” for the party “to accept the results”.
However, the Election Commission referred to remarks of Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera, saying their comments that “results are not acceptable” had been reported in the media.
“Such an unprecedented statement as above in a generic sense, unheard in the rich democratic heritage of the country, is far from a legitimate part of free speech and expression and moves towards an undemocratic rejection of the will of the people expressed by the Statutory and Regulatory electoral framework, uniformly applied across all elections in the country including J-K and Haryana,” the poll panel said in its letter.
