Congress says, restoration of JK statehood top priority

New Delhi: The Congress today congratulated the people of Jammu and Kashmir for an emphatic and categorical mandate to the National Conference and Indian National Congress alliance there.

The party hailed the victory, saying the top most priority of the alliance government would be the restoration of statehood.

The Congress also rejected the Haryana elections results as “unexpected, unacceptable and a defeat for democracy”. The party will be approaching the Election Commission of India with serious complaints that have come from across the state about anomalies in counting of votes.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here today, party general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh and chairman of the media and publicity department Pawan Khera maintained that the election results in Haryana were totally in contravention of the ground realities and public sentiment that was for change and transformation.

Thanking the people of Jammu and Kashmir for their decisive mandate to the NC-INC alliance, the party leaders said that the coalition government of the National Conference and Congress will be transparent and answerable. They said, the top most priority of the government will be restoration of the statehood to Jammu and Kashmir.

They added, there will be a common programme, apart from the respective manifestoes of the two parties. They said the alliance will provide a “responsible, responsive, accountable and transparent government”.

“The people of Jammu and Kashmir have given a clear and categorical verdict in favour of the NC-INC alliance”, they said, while pointing out how the BJP tried till last minute to manipulate and cobble up a majority by various means.

“People of JK have defeated the mischievous designs of the BJP to engineer a majority of their own”, Jairam Ramesh remarked.

Rejecting the Haryana results, Khera disclosed that there were specific complaints about the possible manipulations of the EVMs. He said, some of the candidates referred to some EVMs having 99 percent battery strength even after many rounds of the counting and the results from all such machines went against the Congress. Whereas, he added, those machines, whose battery strength was normal, between 60 to 70 percent, showed Congress candidates to be winning*.

Khera said, there were several other serious complaints which were being collected and in the coming days the party will approach the Election Commission of India. “Yeh tantra ki jeet aur loktantra ki haar hai (this is the defeat of democracy by manipulating the system)”, he remarked.

Asserting that the results were questionable, Jairam Ramesh said that the Congress had been shown losing even in those seats, where there was no scope of its candidates losing.

“Results in Haryana are totally unexpected, completely surprising and counter intuitive going against ground reality and what the people of Haryana had made their mind for which was for change and transformation”, he said, while adding, “it is not possible for us to accept the results that have been announced today”.

Asserting that serious questions have been raised by the party candidates, he said, “what we have seen in Haryana today, is a victory of manipulation, a victory of subverting the will of the people and a defeat for the transparent democratic processes”.

“Chapter on Haryana is not complete, it will continue”, Jairam Ramesh remarked, adding, “Congress has been made to lose by misuse of means and people’s sentiments were different as the ground reality was in favour of change and transformation”.