New Delhi: Congress President Malika Junhag has suffered a serious setback in his bid for re-election as he was fired by the Election Committee on Friday over allegations on Voter turnout data. He has termed it “groundless” and warned that it could cause a disorder “beyond imagination.”
“The way these posts are written, they seem to be designed to sow discord within the intricate arena of electoral management and may give rise to doubts in voters’ minds as well as among political parties…” stated the ECI.
The accusations were part of an attempt made by Haq in a letter sent to India’s top politicians and uploaded on social media platforms to “spin a yarn,” during the recent elections, according to strongly worded response, which is 21 pages long. The paper also noted that no contests affiliated with Congress had disputed any voter register details or lodged petitions due to errors in data for past three years. Instead, such allegations were aimed at demoralizing voters while making them fallacious, obstructive and vague questions marks over the integrity of opinion polls.
The EC then explained the entire process meticulously, thus refuting the allegations point by point and claiming that there was no scope for interference in its proceedings which would not be spotted by the candidates or their representatives.
According to the report, all political parties were aware of voter numbers at each stage while candidates had access to voter numbers in individual polling stations. Moreover, there is no discrepancy in number of votes recorded per Form 17C and signed copies are given to the candidates after close of poll. Again, on counting day, EVM votes are counted along with Form 17C in presence of candidate or his agent. The report said that out of 283 seats polled during first three phases, there was no deviation from norm among any Congress candidate.
“There is a bad trend of national political parties making improper remarks that impugn or try to dent the authenticity of the elections in terms of personals and materials,” said the EC as Haq was “advised” against such talk.
In response to questions from Karg concerning the increase in turnout by about 5.5 percentage points in the first phase and about 5.7 percentage points in the second phase and what appeared to be a delay in publishing voter turnout figures, the EC explained that there had been no delay as evidenced by high updated figures for voter turnout in Data released on polling day. In proof of this, it presented a “fact matrix” of election data beginning with those for Lok Sabha polls in 2019.
The committee further observed that Haq intended to clarify issues but ended up creating a “biased narrative” while his party colleague Randeep Singh Surjewala didnot refrain from spreading this rumour during Karnataka assembly elections held last year.
“This letter unfortunately seems to continue this design/pattern among other false narratives during elections as earlier noted by our committee,” it said.
“Knowing you are an experienced parliamentarian, senior leader with 52 years’ experience and knowledge on electoral politics and process, who leads a recognized national political party, I expect you should know that list preparation process exercise of ECI is designed through most transparent electorate The list preparation processes have been developed and tested at every stage considering input from parties/candidates,” replied EC.
