Congress flags ‘inconsistencies’ in polling, seeks in-person hearing from EC

Mumbai: Maharashtra Congress on Friday sought an in-person hearing from the Election Commission to present “evidence” regarding the alleged inconsistencies in the polling and counting processes for the Maharashtra Assembly election. In the memorandum submitted to the EC, the Congress said, “We write to apprise you of certain serious and grave inconsistencies which are being revealed in the data relating to the polling and counting processes for the recently concluded Maharashtra State Assembly Elections.” The party gave its worst ever performance in Maharashtra by winning only 16 seats in the 288-member House. Claiming that the names were added and deleted from the voters list to benefit the ruling parties and the final voter turnout data increased inexplicably, the Congress said, “These glaring inconsistencies which strike at the very root of a transparent, free and fair electoral system are not based on any biased motives or far-fetched presumptions but have been extracted from the information made publicly available by this EC. Even assuming the time taken by one individual to cast their vote is two minutes, it is impossible for the commission to have even come out with the final data by 11:30 pm considering that 76 lakh voters have exercised their franchise within the last hour of polling.” Interestingly, the EC has clarified that the two-hourly data published by it on the polling day was provisional and the final data published did not include postal ballots.