Congress accuses BJP of trying to manipulate Assembly results in Jammu and Kashmir

A day before the counting of votes cast in the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress central leadership accused BJP of attempting to manipulate the results in its favour.

"There is a clear danger to the people's mandate in J&K," All India Congress Committee general secretary KC Venugopal said in a post on X on Monday. " INC-NC alliance is on the way to a historic victory, but BJP is not ready to digest the democratic verdict and is planning to subvert this through any and all means available at its disposal. We are vigilant to all their dirty tricks and will not let them hijack our democracy."

Since Congress did not make a similar allegation in the case of Haryana, which is also set for declaration of election results on Tuesday, it led many in the political circles to wonder whether the charge reflected AICC's internal assessment of the party's prospects in J&K, where Congress and National Conference contested the polls in alliance.


NC-Congress alliance's hopes of victory in J&K hinge on Congress matching in Jammu a strong showing by NC in Kashmir. During the election campaign, NC leader Omar Abdullah had publicly asked the Congress leadership to pull up its socks in the Jammu region.

Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh said, "We have clear information and basis to say that malicious steps are being taken through a colourable and malafide exercise of power to negate the people's verdict in favour of the INC-NC alliance in J&K. We will do everything in our power to thwart such nefarious designs."

If J&K throws up a hung verdict, several players in the Valley may be open for deals with both NC-Congress and BJP, according to people with knowledge of the matter.