Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday launched a scathing attack on Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray for backing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s allegations of electoral manipulation.
Dismissing the claims as baseless, Fadnavis accused him of attempting to mislead their supporters and failing to confront the real reasons behind their electoral setbacks.
Responding to Thackeray’s recent remarks, Fadnavis said, “They are just trying to console their own hearts and were attempting to tell their workers that they were indeed winning, that there was a conspiracy in their defeat so that the workers don’t scatter.”
“Until they stop lying and insulting people, they cannot win,” Fadnavis added.
What did Raj Thackeray say?
The remarks from the chief minister came after MNS president Raj Thackeray, during a party meeting in Pune on Saturday, voiced support for Rahul Gandhi’s controversial ‘vote chori’ charge. Thackeray said that electoral manipulation was not a new issue and recalled raising similar concerns as far back as 2016-2017.
“I had warned the Opposition back then to boycott the Lok Sabha elections, which would have created international pressure. But everyone chickened out,” Thackeray said. He also alleged that since 2014, governments were being formed through electoral fraud and manipulation.
Referring to the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly polls, Thackeray said the vote tallies of various parties, including BJP (132), Eknath Shinde’s faction (56), and Ajit Pawar’s NCP group (42), claiming the final outcome left both winners and losers baffled due to irregularities.
Rahul Gandhi’s vote theft charge and EC’s retort
Earlier this month, Rahul Gandhi had alleged that the Election Commission was complicit in helping the BJP “steal elections.” At a press conference, he cited irregularities in Karnataka’s Mahadevapura constituency, claiming that over one lakh fake votes had been added to the rolls.
The Election Commission, however, has strongly rejected these accusations. It demanded that Gandhi either produce concrete proof under affidavit or publicly apologise to the nation. Gandhi has done neither so far, and the Opposition continues to rally around his claims.