US presidential race too close to call, Trump claims 'fraud' in the electoral process
Washington: The race for the White House between Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden was poised for a photo-finish, even as the incumbent Republican president on Wednesday claimed "fraud" in the counting of votes and said he would approach the Supreme Court to stop it.
With millions of votes still being counted and several swing states yet to declare results, both Trump and Biden say they are on course for victory in the 2020 presidential election, one of the most divisive and bitter in American history.
Tuesday's election saw tight races in many key battleground states with Biden winning 224 electoral college votes and Trump closely behind with 213. The winner of the 2020 presidential election should have at least 270 electoral college votes out of the 538-member electoral college.
Fox News, considered to be the favorite news network of the president, gave him only 213 electoral college votes while crediting 238 votes to Biden. It also gave 50 percent of the popular vote to the Democratic challenger and 48.4 percent to Trump.
No major US media has projected a clear winner in the election.
President Trump called the election "a fraud on the American public" and said, "Frankly, we did win this election."
He also said he planned to take the battle to the Supreme Court to stop the counting of votes.
"All of a sudden everything just stopped. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Trump said, without citing any evidence of fraud in the electoral process.
"We will win this, and as far as I'm concerned, we already have won it," Trump, 74, said in remarks to supporters in the White House East Room at 2 am.
"Our goal now is to ensure integrity, for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud in our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the US Supreme Court.
"We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at four o'clock in the morning and add them to the list," Trump said, amidst applause from his supporters.
Reacting sharply, Biden's campaign manager called Trump's statement as "outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect."
"If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail," Jen O'Malley Dillon said.
"The president's statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect. It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens," Dillon said in a statement.
Trump was currently leading in other major battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan where projections are yet to be made by the US media outlets.
A national race in which a record number of Americans voted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic is boiling down to just a handful of states: Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Polls before Election Day suggested possible outcomes ranging from a comfortable win for Biden to a narrow victory for Trump where he loses the national popular vote but once again carries enough battleground states to win in the electoral college.
But Trump's decision to move the Supreme Court has brought uncertainty. The mainstream American media has criticized the president.
"No elected leader has the right to unilaterally order votes to stop being counted, and Mr. Trump's middle-of-the-night proclamation amounted to a reckless attempt to hijack the electoral process as results in key battleground states were still not final, something without precedent in American politics," The New York Times commented, criticizing the president's move.
Trump's remarks added another bizarre twist to one of the most extraordinary election cycles in the nation's history, it said.
With millions of votes still being counted, the outcome of the race between Trump and Biden remained in flux, with the possibility that the winner would not be known for days, The Washington Post reported.
A short time before Trump spoke, Biden, 77, addressed supporters in his home state of Delaware.
Biden projected optimism but asked voters for patience. He pointed to Pennsylvania and Michigan, among other battlegrounds, as slow-counting states that he expected to win.
"As I've said all along, it's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare who's won this election, Biden said. "That's the decision of the American people. But I'm optimistic about this outcome."
"It ain't over till every vote is counted," Biden added.
Trump pointed out that he had impressive victories in Florida, Ohio, and Texas. He said that he has already won in states like Georgia and North Carolina where his rivals cannot catch up in the rest of the counting of votes.
Arizona, which has been projected to be won by Biden, continues to be in play, he said, adding that he is winning big in Pennsylvania.
Alleging that his challenger (Biden) knew that they couldn't win, Trump said: So they said, let's go to court. I have been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. I said exactly because either they were going to win, or if they didn't win. They'll take us to court."
According to reports, there are more than 1.4 million vote-by-mail ballots left to count in Pennsylvania, and it could take days to tabulate them all. The big cities in Michigan (Detroit) and Wisconsin (Milwaukee) are also yet to fully report, and they will heavily tilt toward the Democrats.
Meanwhile, Georgia is a wildcard. What seemed heading towards a comfortable Trump win earlier on Tuesday has ended up in a dead heat.
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What Trump did to Maduro, Modi has done to Nitish Kumar: Cong's Jairam Ramesh
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Friday took a swipe at the BJP over Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's decision to move to the Rajya Sabha, saying what US President Donald Trump did to then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now done to the JD(U) chief.
He also said that Kumar's decision to step down as chief minister is a betrayal of the mandate the people gave in assembly polls in November last year. Ramesh said the people of the state voted for Kumar's re-election and not for a BJP chief minister.
Ramesh's remarks came a day after JD(U) chief Kumar filed nomination papers for Rajya Sabha elections, marking a turning point in Bihar politics and virtually bringing the curtain down on his tenure as the state's longest-serving chief minister. The move has paved the way for a new government in the Hindi heartland state, likely to be headed by the BJP.
Expressing gratitude to the people of the state, Kumar had said on X, "For more than two decades, you have consistently placed your trust and support in me, and it is on the strength of that trust that we have served Bihar and all of you with complete dedication. It is the power of your trust and support that has enabled Bihar today to present a new dimension of development and dignity."
Asked about this major development in Bihar politics, Ramesh told PTI, "During the Bihar election campaign, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, had said that Nitish Kumar would not remain chief minister for long because the BJP's aim was to remove him. Ultimately, that is what happened."
Kumar hasn't even been chief minister for four months in the present term and he's being removed, Ramesh said.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Modi and the BJP, Ramesh said, "What Trump did to Maduro, Modi ji has done to Nitish Kumar. This is a coup"
The US military had seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their Caracas home on January 3 in a stunning operation that landed them in New York to face federal drug trafficking charges.
On Kumar's move to the Rajya Sabha, Ramesh said, "This was inevitable. This is a betrayal of the people of Bihar and the mandate they gave."
The mandate wasn't to make a BJP chief minister, but to make Nitish Kumar the chief minister.
"It's possible that tomorrow, (Chandrababu) Naidu is brought here and made a minister, a coup can happen there too. There was a coup in Maharashtra too, the split the NCP and Shiv Sena... This is all the work of the 'G2'," Ramesh said.
He said the Congress just has six MLAs in Bihar but it will continue to raise the issues of the people and Kumar's move to Rajya Sabha is a "betrayal of the mandate".
The Congress on Thursday had said a "leadership coup and regime change orchestrated by G2" has taken place and is a "huge betrayal" of the mandate of the people.
