EC rejects Congress allegations on Haryana polls: ‘Frivolous, unfounded doubts’

The Election Commission of India on Tuesday rejected the Congress’s allegations of irregularities in the Haryana assembly elections, calling them “baseless, misplaced and devoid of facts”.

The poll panel has also warned the grand old party, asking it to refrain from “baseless allegations” election after election.

“ECI is duty bound to protect and defend the integrity of the core design of this statutory decentralized scheme, that is being sought to be eroded or duplicated, by “generic” petitions/grievances setting out false narratives without any evidence whatsoever, raised in proximity to polling or counting day, which have serious potential to fuel the surcharged environment,” the poll panel said in a letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.

The Congress had made several complaints to the EC, including allegations of a slowdown in the vote counting process on October 8, the day results of the Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir elections were declared.

The grand old party had also sought clarification on display of 99% battery status on the control units (CU) of electronic voting machines (EVM), during counting in some polling stations of 26 assembly constituencies.