When Cong loses, they start raising doubts on EVMs, ECI: Naqvi on Haryana election row

New Delhi, Oct 30 (IANS): As the Election Commission of India (ECI) rejected allegations made by the Congress regarding irregularities in the Haryana polls, BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Wednesday said that when the party loses, its leaders start raising questions on the ECI and Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The ECI on Tuesday rejected allegations made by the Congress, labelling them as "baseless, misplaced, and devoid of facts."

In a letter to the Congress, the poll commission urged them to refrain from making unfounded claims after every election, accusing the party of creating "generic" doubts without substance.

Talking to IANS, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, "The situation of the Congress is such that their land is barren but they still dare to dig. The Congress should now understand that they cannot rule without public support. The Congress never accepts reality. When the people do not give them the mandate, then they start raising questions over the functionality of the EC."

"With all this, they are trying to portray that they didn't lose in the state, but it was an error from the ECI's end. This kind of mindset has ruined them as they are continuously losing in almost every poll," he added.

Naqvi further reacted to the chaos that erupted again during the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) meeting on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, after the Delhi Waqf Board supported the proposed changes to the legislation even as Opposition MPs called it illegal.

The Opposition said the Delhi Waqf Board administrator was not a Muslim and argued that the law stated that non-Muslims could not be on the Waqf Board.

A BJP MP pointed out that when Arvind Kejriwal was the Chief Minister, he had appointed a Hindu administrator to the Delhi Waqf Board.

"I believe that the Waqf Board has majorly non-Muslims stakeholders. In it there are Hindus, Sikhs and other people too," he said.

"When the country was divided, millions of people from Pakistan left everything there and came to India. They left their homes, shops, fields and everything else behind. The administration of that time counted them as refugees and they were settled in different places. Later those properties were declared as Waqf assets. So, it is necessary to address this issue as soon as possible," he concluded.