Gurugram: Hours after Rahul Gandhi claimed another round of “vote chori” in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections, the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Bhupinder Singh Hooda Wednesday said the details revealed by Gandhi during his press conference have vindicated his (Hooda’s) stand that the BJP stole people’s mandate in the elections held in October last year.
Addressing a press conference at his Talkatora Road residence in Delhi Wednesday evening, Hooda said no exit poll had given the BJP more than 29 seats in the 2024 assembly polls, while all pollsters predicted a landslide victory for the Congress.
Accompanied by state Congress chief Rao Narender Singh, former state Congress president Udai Bhan and AICC co-incharge for Haryana Jitendra Baghel, the Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly said that when the postal ballots were counted, Congress led on 73 seats against 17 for the BJP.
“Take the example of any of the last five polls, and you will find that the party that won in postal ballots won the elections as well. However, this time, despite leading in 73 out of 90 seats in the postal ballots, the Congress lost the election,” Hooda said.
Recounting the atmosphere after the results came on 8 October last year, Hooda said that everyone, including political observers, politicians and the media was shocked, as no one was expecting a BJP victory in the elections.
Questioning the transparency of the Election Commission of India (ECI), Hooda said the Congress had raised the issue of a sudden increase in the voter turnout before the counting of votes too, but the ECI didn’t pay heed to their objections.
“On the day polling was held on 5 October, the Election Commission reported 61.19 percent turnout. A day later, the ECI issued figures of 65.65 percent polling. However, a day before counting of votes, on 7 October, the ECI came up with figures of 67.9 percent voter turnout. How did the voter turnout increase overnight? An average of 15,175 votes were inflated in each assembly constituency. In all, nearly 15 lakh votes increased after the first voter turnout given out by the ECI,” Hooda pointed out.
Hooda said that it was not a question of the Congress failing to constitute its government in Haryana despite the people of the state voting in its favour. “It was a question of upholding the Constitution of India that our leaders wrote to make India an ideal democracy,” he said, adding that he was proud his father Chaudhary Ranbir Singh was also part of the leaders who drafted the Constitution.
Hooda said that as per a 2022 verdict of the Supreme Court, 5 percent of the EVMs could be checked on the request of a candidate and for that the ECI has prescribed a fee of Rs 40,000, plus GST. Several of our our candidates have paid the fees, but the ECI is refusing to allow them to check the EVMs. The ECI is not even bothering to reply to courts’ notices on this issue,” Hooda alleged.
He said that the Election Commission was bound to perform its duties impartially, which it was not doing. Hooda said the voice of the people of Haryana was suppressed, and the government in Haryana was stolen through vote theft.
State president Rao Narender Singh said Rahul Gandhi’s revelations have proved that 25 lakh votes were rigged in Haryana, meaning that 1 in every 8 votes was a fake vote. “The mandate has clearly been stolen,” he said.
The Haryana Congress president said this fight is not just about Congress, but about democracy and the country’s Constitution. “Congress was ahead in postal ballots, but as soon as the machines were opened, the BJP took the lead. The difference between victory and defeat was only 22,779 votes, whereas 3.5 lakh votes were removed from the electoral rolls after the Lok Sabha elections held just five months earlier. The BJP has insulted the mandate. The Congress Party will hold strong protests in every district against this government’s theft,” he added.
He said that the rigging was so blatant that, on the photograph of a Brazilian model, 22 votes were cast in 10 booths in Haryana’s voter list, each under a different name. Also, 223 votes with the same photo were found in one booth. He also said, 501 voters were registered to a single household. Across the state, 1,24,177 voters with fake photos were found, he alleged.
Singh added that thousands of people have votes in both Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, including many BJP leaders and workers. An old two-storey house was even shown as “house number 0”.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)