The Congress on Friday said that the tone of the Election Commission’s response to allegations that the party had made about electoral irregularities in Haryana was condescending and that it may take legal recourse to expunge such remarks.
On October 29, the commission dismissed the Congress’ allegations of irregularities in the recent Haryana Assembly elections and accused the party of “raising the smoke of a generic doubt” on the electoral outcome.
In a letter to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, the poll panel had said that such behaviour was “least expected” from a national party.
On October 9, the Congress said there were “serious issues” related to the counting of votes and the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines in several districts. The Congress alleged that Electronic Voting Machines in constituencies where the Bharatiya Janata Party won had their batteries charged to 99% capacity, while those charged to 60-70% battery capacity showed Congress victories. The party submitted complaints from 26 constituencies where it claims to have observed this discrepancy.
This had come a day after the BJP won the Haryana election by clinching 48 seats in the 90-member Assembly. This was an increase from the 40 seats the Hindutva party had won in the 2019 polls. The Congress won 37 seats.
The Congress subsequently urged the commission to seal the Electronic Voting Machines in 20 Assembly constituencies in Haryana until an investigation was completed over alleged irregularities in the counting process.
In response to the Election Commission’s letter, the Congress said on Friday that if the panel’s goal was to “strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality”, then it was doing a “remarkable job” at creating that impression.
“Not surprisingly, the ECI has given a clean chit to itself,” the Congress said. “We would normally have let it be at that. However, the tone and tenor of the ECI’s response, the language used, and the allegations made against the INC compel us to submit the counter-response.”
The Congress said that because the constitutional body has administrative and quasi-judicial functions, the panel granting a national party a hearing or examining concerns raised by the party “is not an ‘exception’”.
“It is performance of a duty, which it is required to do,” the Congress said.
The letter, signed by senior party leaders including KC Venugopal, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Jairam Ramesh, said that the Congress refuses to take lightly the tone of the panel’s communications to the party. “Every reply from the ECI now seems to be laced with ad-hominem attacks on either individual leaders of the party itself,” it said.
“Judges who write decisions do not attack or demonise the party raising the issues,” the Congress said. “...if the ECI persists then we shall have no choice but to seek legal recourse to expunge such remarks...”
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