Chandigarh

The Election Commission of India (ECI) hit back at the Congress party for alleging that there was a delay in the poll body publishing leads and results of the Haryana Assembly election on its website. 

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In a strongly-worded statement, the ECI said it "unequivocally rejects your [Congress'] attempt to surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated malafide narratives".

The poll panel added that counting results from approximately "25 rounds across all constituencies" were being updated every five minutes, which showed the speedy manner in which the votes were being counted. 

Watch | Election Results 2024: BJP Ahead In Haryana, Congress Alliance In Jammu & Kashmir

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What did Congress allege?

Congress in a complaint to ECI claimed that during the initial hours of counting, there was an "unexplained slowdown" in updating the results on the website. 

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"As you can imagine this allows bad faith actors to spin out narratives that undermine the 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," Congress said in its complaint. 

Addressing the media, Congress General Secretary and Communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh doubled down on the allegations and accused the BJP of subverting people's will. 

"All afternoon, I've been in touch with the Election Commission. The Election Commission has replied to my complaint, I've replied to the reply. We've received very serious complaints on the process of counting, the functioning of EVMs in at least three districts. We've spoken to our senior colleagues in Haryana. This information is being collected, and we hope to present this in a consolidated form to the Election Commission."

Some Congress leaders once against raised aspersions over the accuracy and transparency of the results from the EVMs (Electronic Voting Machine).  

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Also read | Haryana Election Results 2024: Congress politician 'demand transparency in EVMs' after trends show BJP in lead

Poll results 

Despite most exit polls and pundits predicting a rout for the BJP in the northern Indian state after a 10-year reign, the poll results on Tuesday delivered a big shock to the Congress. The grand old party failed to match its own hype as BJP was near to securing 48 seats in the 90-seat Assembly. 

As of the last update, Congress had won 35 seats and was leading in two seats - leaving it short of the magical number of 46. 

The average of the various exit polls suggested that Congress may end up with 44-61 seats and put BJP second with 18-32 seats.

(With inputs from agencies)