Haryana Assembly poll: EC junks Congress complaint, terms it 'irresponsible'

The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday rejected Congress' allegation of delaying uploading election trends of the Haryana Assembly poll, claiming that it was an attempt to "surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated mala fide narratives”.

In response to the allegations made by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, the ECI said, "There is nothing on record to substantiate your ill-founded allegation of slowdown in updating results."

The Congress had complained about “inordinate and unacceptable” delay in updating the election trends on the poll panel's website.

It further pointed out that Ramesh’s memorandum over the alleged delay did not provide evidence in any specific constituencies. It said the Congress had raised a similar concern on June 4 when the General Election results were announced.

It emphasised that the counting process was being conducted in the presence of candidates, observers, and micro-observers. "Approximately 25 rounds across all the constituencies are being updated every five minutes.”

The ECI’s response came as the BJP had taken lead in the initial trends in counting, which began early on Tuesday morning.

In an “Urgent Memorandum” addressed to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and commissioners Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Ramesh complained that there was an unexplained slowdown for over two hours (between 9-11 am).

Ramesh said delay allowed “bad faith actors” to “spin narratives” resulting in undermining of the electoral 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. in most of the counting centres,” he had said in the memorandum.