The Congress on Tuesday said that the Haryana Assembly election result was unacceptable to it, citing “serious issues” relating to the vote counting process and the functioning of the Electronic Voting Machines in several districts.

Party leader Jairam Ramesh said that “democracy had lost” and the “establishment had won”.

“Serious questions have been raised by our candidates,” Ramesh said at a press conference on Tuesday evening after the poll results were announced. “We will bring it to the notice of the Election Commission.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party won the Haryana election by clinching 48 seats in the 90-member Assembly. This was an increase from the 40 seats the Hindutva party had won in the 2019 polls. The Congress won 37 seats.

Most exit polls had projected a victory for the Congress in the state.

On Tuesday, Ramesh claimed that the poll result was a “victory of manipulation” and “subverting the will” of citizens.

His party colleague Pawan Khera alleged that the Congress had received complaints from the Hisar, Mahendragarh and Panipat constituencies about the Electronic Voting Machines having 99% battery levels, where the BJP won.

The Congress had won where the units had battery levels from 60% to 70%, Khera said.

Ramesh claimed that the party had received complaints from 12 to 14 seats so far. “If this is not a conspiracy, then what is it?” he asked.

Congress candidates who initially had “healthy, leading margins” ended up losing by 100 to 200 votes, Ramesh claimed. “This can be explained only by manipulation and pressure,” he added.

The Congress leader said that more information was being collected on the matter. “We hope to present this in a consolidated form to the Election Commission tomorrow or the day after,” Ramesh said.

He added that the Congress expects the Election Commission to “function constitutionally and independently”.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said his party is analysing the “unexpected” results in Haryana and will take up the complaints with the Election Commission.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ramesh said that the Congress had filed a complaint with the Election Commission alleging a delay in updating the leads on the poll panel’s website in the morning.

“As you can imagine this allows bad faith actors to spin narratives that undermine the process,” said the Congress. “Our fear is also that such narratives can then be used by these mala fide actors to influence processes where counting is still underway, i.e., in most of the counting centres.”

The Election Commission rejected the Congress’ claims on Tuesday saying that it was an “attempt to surreptitiously give credence to irresponsible, unfounded and uncorroborated malafide narratives”.

The Assembly polls in the state took place in a single phase on Saturday, recording a 67.9% voter turnout.

Also read: Five reasons for the BJP’s unprecedented third-time win in Haryana