In a memorandum submitted to the Election Commission on Wednesday, the Congress party expressed concerns over “glaring discrepancies” related to EVM machines in several constituencies in Haryana. They provided a list of specific seats as illustrative examples.

The Congress identified seven constituencies: Karnal, Rewari, Panipat City, Hodal, Kalka, and Narnaul. The party lost these seats to the BJP, with margins ranging from 610 votes to 35,672 votes, with all but one loss attributed to the BJP.

Narnaul
Narnaul was the first seat cited by Congress as potentially having irregularities, a concern raised by senior leaders during the final stages of vote counting. The BJP’s Om Prakash Yadav won the seat, defeating Congress’s Rao Narender Singh by 17,171 votes. Om Prakash, who also secured victory in 2014 and 2019, increased his vote share compared to previous elections.

The Congress has not won Narnaul since 1991. This time, Narender Singh, the Congress candidate, faced defeat again after finishing third in the last two elections, consistently trailing behind Om Prakash (BJP) and Kamlesh Saini (Jannayak Janata Party).

In 2009, Narender Singh won Narnaul as a candidate for the Haryana Janhit Congress (Bhajan Lal), which has since merged with the BJP.

Karnal
Karnal has been represented by former BJP Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar since 2014, until he moved to a central position in March. In the 2019 Assembly elections, Khattar won the seat by a margin of 45,188 votes. After his departure, current Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini won the bypoll in June, defeating Congress’s Tarlochan Singh by 41,540 votes.

In the recent elections, the BJP fielded Khattar’s close aide Jagmohan Anand, who defeated Congress’s Sumita Virk by 33,652 votes. The Congress last secured this seat in 2009.

Dabwali
Dabwali featured a multi-cornered contest, including two members of the Devi Lal family. Aditya Devilal, grandson of Devi Lal, won the seat on the INLD ticket, narrowly defeating sitting Congress MLA Amit Sihag by 610 votes. Digvijay Chautala of the JJP, brother of former Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala, finished third.

In 2019, Sihag and Aditya faced off, with Sihag winning by 17,645 votes.

Hodal
Udai Bhan, Haryana PCC chief and close aide of Congress’s leading CM candidate Bhupinder Singh Hooda, ran from Hodal but lost to the BJP’s Harinder Singh by 2,595 votes. Bhan had previously won this seat in 2014 against INLD’s Jagdish Nayar by 11,680 votes but lost to Nayar in 2019.

Kalka
In Kalka, the BJP nominated Shakti Rani Sharma, the wife of former Union minister and ex-Congress leader Venod Sharma, just three days after her defection. Shakti defeated Congress’s Pradeep Chaudhary by 10,883 votes. In 2019, Chaudhary won the seat, beating the BJP’s Latika Sharma.

Panipat City
The BJP retained the seat with sitting MLA Pramod Kumar Vij, who won by 35,672 votes against Congress’s Varinder Kumar Shah. Vij’s victory margin decreased slightly from 2019, where he defeated Congress’s Sanjay Aggarwal by over 39,000 votes. An Independent candidate, former MLA Rohita Rewari, received 15,546 votes, but this did not help Congress secure a win.

The Congress last won Panipat City in 2009.

Rewari
Traditionally a stronghold for senior Congress leader Capt Ajay Singh Yadav, Rewari saw his son Chiranjeev Rao win by just 1,317 votes in 2019. This time, BJP’s Laxman Singh Yadav defeated Chiranjeev by 28,769 votes. The Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate, Satish Yadav, may have impacted Congress’s prospects by securing 18,427 votes.

Before the current elections, the BJP had only won Rewari once in 2014.