O…cials of EC have to decide where they stand: Kharge
Responding to the Election Commission’s (EC) rebuttal, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday said in a letter to the poll body that the Congress was on its side and it was for the o«cials of the EC to now decide where they stood.
The EC on Friday issued a public rebuttal to a letter written by Mr. Kharge to his colleagues in the INDIA bloc on the alleged “discrepancies in the voting data” released, calling it an “attempt to push a biased narrative under the guise of seeking clarications”.
Media associations have written to the Chief Election Commissioner demanding that press conferences be held after each phase of voting and that the entire poll data, including “absolute number” of votes polled in each phase and percentage of voting, be released by next day.
In a joint letter, the Press Club of India, the Indian Women Press Corp, the Press Association, the Foreign Correspondent Club, and the Delhi Union of Journalists expressed dismay at the Election Commission (EC) not holding a single press conference even after the completion of three phases of voting. “Till 2019, holding a press conference after voting in each phase was the normal practice. India, being one of the largest democracies in the world..., the citizens have every right to know what has happened on the voting day,” the letter said.
Expressing surprise that the EC had not been releasing the “absolute number of votes polled”, the letter said this was not the case in the past elections. The developments had led to apprehension in the minds of people about the fairness of the election, it said.