After an embarrassing defeat in Haryana, the Congress on Tuesday said results in the state were totally unexpected and that there were serious complaints of manipulation coming in from three districts - Hisar, Mahendragarh, and Panipat.
"The results in Haryana are totally unexpected, completely surprising and counter-intuitive. It goes against ground reality. It goes against what the people of Haryana had made their minds up for, which was for change and transformation," Congress communication-in-charge Jairam Ramesh said in a press conference.
"I think under these circumstances, it is not possible for us to accept the results that have been announced today," the Congress MP said, adding that the party has received very serious complaints on the process of counting, the functioning of EVMs in at least three districts.
"There are more that are coming in. We have spoken to our senior colleagues in Haryana and this information is being collected. We hope to present this in a consolidated form to the Election Commission tomorrow or the day after. Serious questions have been raised by our candidates. We will bring it to the notice of the Election Commission."
Ramesh said that what the Congress had seen today in Haryana was a victory for manipulation, "a victory for subverting the will of the people and it is a defeat for transparent democratic processes."
Congress leader Pawan Khera said this was the "victory of the system" and the "defeat of democracy". "We cannot accept this. We are collecting complaints. Our candidates have given complaints to the returning officers there and are still giving them. In the coming days, we will soon go to the Election Commission with all these complaints and register our complaint there," Khera said.
"This kind of result was not visible anywhere on the ground. No one can believe that such an unexpected result will come in Haryana. We are all surprised."
"The results are totally unexpected and we would even say that they are unacceptable. The kind of complaints that are continuously coming in. There are continuous complaints about our candidate from three districts, Hisar, Mahendragarh, and Panipat. Complaints are continuously coming about how some batteries of machines that were 99% showed us losing and in the machines which were not touched, whose batteries were 60-70% shows our candidate winning," Khera added.
Earlier in the day, the Congress had raised with the EC the issue of an "unexplained slowdown" in updating of results on the poll watchdog's website and urged it to direct officials to update accurate figures so that "false news and malicious narratives" can be countered immediately.
The Congress has suffered a historic defeat in Haryana, where the grand old party was certain to win. The BJP, despite ruling the state for 10 years, pulled off yet another victory. The BJP is likely to win 48-49 seats, while Congress is expected to win 37 seats.