The Congress on Monday expressed suspicion about foul play in the Gujarat election by pointing to the last-hour surge in the polling percentage.

Congress media department head Pawan Khera said at a news conference: “We saw in media reports that over 16 lakh voters cast their votes after the scheduled closure time of 5pm. Now we are analysing Form 17C and find that there has been a jump of 10-11 per cent in the last one hour, between 5pm and 6pm, in some constituencies. This is unusual.”

Form 17C is the certificate given by the Election Commission to the candidates detailing polling in every booth with a complete account of recorded votes. The form bears the signatures of the polling agents of every candidate and the polling officer.

Asked why the Congress did not flag these concerns on the day of results, Khera said: “Collecting Form 17C from candidates and analysing them takes time. It is not that counting would have stopped and repoll ordered had we flagged the concerns that day.”

Khera added: “We had to do our homework properly before going public and taking the next steps. We are still analysing the data. We see that constituencies in the second phase, particularly in Ahmedabad and Vadodara, recorded massive polling despite the absence of crowds at the booths after 5pm. Our candidates who were patrolling their constituencies didn’t notice crowds after 5pm to justify this jump.”

The Election Commission’s initial report suggested 58.8 per cent polling in the second phase but it was revised to 65.3 per cent later. Arguing that the last-hour surge would have been possible if there were a stampede-like situation outside booths after 5pm, Khera said: “Usually it takes 60 seconds to cast one vote. We can do a mock drill and find out that the process doesn’t take less than 60 seconds to be completed. But records show one vote was cast in 25 to 30 seconds at many booths. At one booth, 16,000 votes were cast in one hour. In some seats, we see an 11.55 per cent jump in one hour.”

Khera said: “Where from did these manufactured votes come? In the past, we saw one booth in Dholka where only 641 votes were recorded but the EVM counted 2,064 votes. We are raising a critical question linked to the future of democracy. They started with Congress-mukt Bharat but the threat is now democracy-mukt Bharat.”

Alleging that the Election Commission was not willing to take action against the BJP, Khera said: “We approached the Election Commission in Gujarat and Delhi with several complaints of violation of the model code of conduct. We didn’t see justice being done. We don’t have any hope of justice being done. Nobody should be allowed to hijack democracy. Vote is the only weapon in the hands of citizens in a democracy.”

Appealing to the media to give voice to these concerns, he said: “The Opposition is orphaned in the absence of a fair and strong media.” Congress leaders from Gujarat said in private conversations since the day of results that the rise in BJP’s vote was surprising because of the anger they saw against the misrule everywhere.

They said the AAP splitting the Opposition vote was understandable but the BJP’s vote rising 5 per cent was inexplicable. The Congress may be looking at legal remedy in the coming days.