Chandigarh, September 25: Thousands of Haryana Congress workers and leaders staged a massive protest today at the State Election Commission office. Police, present in large numbers, stopped the Congress members, who had arrived to gherao to the office, using barricades and force.
Water cannons were also deployed against them in a dangerous manner. Several Congress leaders and workers sustained injuries due to police high-handedness. Police detained a large number of party leaders and workers and took them to the police station. The protesters raised slogans to condemn the dictatorial attitude of the police and the government.
The protest was led by the party’s state in-charge Sanjay Dutt, former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and state Congress president Rao Narendra. Also present on the occasion were MP Deepender Singh Hooda, Jaiprakash JP, Varun Mulana, Satpal Brahmachari, and Karamveer Baudh, along with various MLAs, former MLAs, district presidents, office-bearers, and senior leaders.
Speaking on the occasion, Bhupinder Singh Hooda stated that public trust in the Election Commission’s functioning has eroded, with revelations about it surfacing one after another. “Following Rahul Gandhi’s statements, media reports have now made it clear that the BJP formed governments in several states, including Haryana, by stealing votes,” he stated.
“Media reports clearly indicate that Gyanesh Kumar treated the Election Commission as his personal fiefdom to aid the BJP. He completely disregarded the other two Election Commissioners as well. Under these circumstances, Gyanesh Kumar has no right to continue in his post, he must resign immediately,” he added.
Hooda noted that the Congress had raised several questions with the Election Commission following the Haryana election results but has received no response to date. “For instance, on the night of the 5th, the Commission announced a voter turnout of 61.19% for Haryana. However, the figure was raised to 65.65% the following day, and further increased to 67.9% on the 7th, just a day before the vote count. It is baffling how the vote count could rise so significantly overnight,” he said.
The Leader of the Opposition stated that Rahul Gandhi had also exposed irregularities in the voter lists, backed by evidence. “The extent of the manipulation was such that, in some places in Haryana, 501 votes were registered against a single house; elsewhere, 223 votes (or in some instances, 100 votes) were created using the photograph of the same woman. Furthermore, 22 votes were registered using the photograph of a Brazilian model,” he pointed out.
“These are merely a few examples; the actual scale of the manipulation involves hundreds of thousands of votes. Electoral irregularities occurred not only in the constituencies where the Congress lost but also in those where it won. Otherwise, Congress MLAs would have secured victories with much larger margins,” he noted.
Hooda remarked that the BJP did not merely steal votes in Haryana but effectively stole the entire government through such tactics. “This amounts to a subversion of the country’s democracy and Constitution. The Congress will raise its voice against this on every platform,” he said.
