Published Oct 10, 2024 | 4:00 PM ⚊ Updated Oct 10, 2024 | 4:00 PM
Jubilant BJP workers after the poll results were announced. (Haryana BJP/X)
Remember the rabbit-raven illusion? For some, it looks like an adorable rabbit, while others see a raven. But actually, what is it? The debate over the optical illusion goes on.
The Congress — and most psephologists — were seeing a rabbit till the Haryana Assembly poll result presented them with an ominous raven.
The confident spirit of Congress leaders and workers came crashing as the counting of votes progressed, and the BJP started leading the see-saw battle, which eventually, the latter won.
For some time, the result looked like an illusion, incredible and defying logic, even as BJP workers, delighted with the outcome, started dancing to the tune of booming drums. The sweets that the Congress had kept for the celebration suddenly turned bitter.
The BJP, in a sarcastic joust, sent one kg of jalebi to Rahul Gandhi who spoke highly of the jalebi of Matu Ram Halwa of Gohana in Haryana during his campaign and how Narendra Modi’s demonetization and GST had hurt the likes of Matu Rams all over India.
Now cut to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. After the Haryana results came out, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy was quick to blame the EVMs for the Congress’s defeat. He likened it to YSRCP’s defeat in the Assembly elections when the expectation was that his party would win the elections hands down.
Jagan even recalled how several countries are still using ballot papers despite the advent of modern technology. Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu reacted sharply to Jagan’s suspicion and shot back at him, asking whether he had won the 2019 Assembly elections by tampering with the EVMs.
In the 2018 Assembly elections in Telangana, the TRS (now BRS) won decisively. The Congress, which had thought it was on the road to capturing power (a delusion all political parties suffer like the BRS in the 2024 elections), was suspected of manipulation of the verdict.
For more than a fortnight, the Congress leaders came up with all theories of how EVMs could have been tampered with. However, the same Congress did not doubt the accuracy of the EVMs when it won the elections in December 2023.
There is no consensus and there will never be one over whether political jalebis are sweet or bitter or whether EVMs are dependable or not. Like the optical illusion: Rabbit or raven?
