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"We are very hopeful that our results will be completely opposite to what the exit polls are showing," Sonia Gandhi told the media after some INDIA bloc leaders attended a function at the DMK office here to mark the 100th birth anniversary of the late K Karunanidhi. Congress state units held press conferences to rubbish exit polls and claimed a good show by the party on Tuesday. As per the decision of Saturday's INDIA bloc meeting, many senior INDIA bloc leaders have been asked to stay in Delhi on the day of the results "for prompt response".
AICC has also put up, as customary, canopies and media stands at 24 Akbar Road, as special arrangements for the counting day.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who led the INDIA bloc delegation to the Election Commission of India on Thursday with a set of demands for fool-proof vote counting, welcomed ECI's response on Monday.
"As informed, I am happy and proud to have spoken on behalf of the multi-party delegation which went yesterday (Sunday) to the Election Commission of India. We are also grateful to ECI for giving us time promptly on a Sunday and for hearing us patiently. What one is happiest about is that a very glaring issue of democracy, namely counting postal ballots first, has been graciously and promptly agreed to by ECI, one or two days before the counting of votes and shall be implemented tomorrow. This is the participatory manner of promoting the spirit of democracy in a non-adversarial fashion, which works best in the long term," Singhvi said in a statement.
While the Congress circles were preoccupied with party spokesperson Jairam Ramesh's tricky dealing with ECI over his allegation that the Union home ministry tried to influence over 150 district collectors on the eve of vote-counting, there was no response from Ramesh at the time of writing to ECI's 7 pm deadline to back up his charge with evidence.
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