Ill-founded: EC on Cong charge of update delay

The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday told the Congress that there was nothing on record to substantiate its “ill-founded allegation” of a slowdown in updating of the Haryana poll results. It also dubbed the party’s allegation as an attempt to “surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated mala fide narratives”.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had complained about “inordinate and unacceptable” delay in updating the Haryana poll result trends on the EC’s website. The EC said the Congress had raised a similar concern on June 4 when the results of the General Election were announced.

It emphasised the counting process was conducted in the presence of candidates, observers and micro-observers. “Approximately 25 rounds across all constituencies are being updated every five minutes,” it said. Earlier, Ramesh said between 9 and 11 am, there had been an “unexplained slowdown” in update on EC’s website.