BJP accuses EC of ‘favouring’ Congress

The BJP on Friday attacked the Election Commission (EC) for its defeat in Madhya Pradesh’s Ater assembly bypolls, saying the poll watchdog took several decisions in favour of the Congress.

However, the party’s national leadership, which on Thursday claimed five seats of the 10 assembly constituencies across eight states where by-elections were held on April 9, praised the commission for conducting free and fair elections.

Congress candidate Hemant Katare defeated BJP’s Arvind Singh Bhadoria by a narrow margin of 857 votes at Ater in Bhind district. Hemant secured 59,228 votes, while Bhadoria got 58,371. The saffron party, however, won the Bandhavgarh seat.

The by-election in Ater was necessitated due to the death of Hemant’s father Satyadev Katare, the then Leader of Opposition in the assembly, in 2016.

The defeat in Ater has not gone down well with party leaders, with Bhadoria dubbing chief electoral officer Bhanwar Lal a Congress agent. Lal was deputed to oversee the polls after a row over the paper audit of an electronic voting machine that allegedly offered voting slips in favour of the BJP when multiple buttons were pressed on the device.

Reports said the EVM registered votes only for the saffron party during the media demonstration of a Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail or VVPAT by the then chief electoral officer Saleena Singh on March 31.

“Though the Congress candidate benefited from a sympathy factor, the EC didn’t do justice to us. It took several decisions in Congress’ favour,” state BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan said.