New Delhi/IBNS: The Election Commission Tuesday slammed the Congress for making "baseless allegations... when faced with inconvenient electoral outcomes" and claimed that the Haryana polling process was flawless.
The sharp rebuke comes after the Congress' repeated claims pointing to irregularities during the Haryana election in which it lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party, despite having a big early lead.
In a statement, the poll body rejected the Congress' claims of "an unexplained slowdown in updating of (Haryana election) results" on its website on counting day - October 8 - for two hours.
The EC warned the Congress, and other political parties, against making "unfounded and sensational complaints" during an election, especially during casting and counting of votes.
"Irresponsible allegations can lead to public unrest, turbulence, and chaos," the EC said.
It also asked Congress to take "firm and concrete steps and curb (this) tendency of frivolous complaints".
"Each step in the electoral process in Haryana was flawless and executed under the watch of Congress candidates or agents," the EC said in its formal response.
The 1600-page document contained point-by-point rebukes to each of the Congress' complaints, including a demand for clarification on the battery status of the counting unit (CU) of the electronic voting machines (EVM) to the "deliberate slowdown in the speed of counting and uploading of data" on the EC website.
On concerns about the battery, the EC said the display of voltage and capacity is "irrelevant to the EVM' s vote-counting functionality and integrity". "Battery status displayed on CU serves only to assist technical teams in monitoring power levels... to ensure smooth operation during polling," the EC said.
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