Fadnavis Rebukes Rahul Gandhi Over Maharashtra Poll Rigging Allegations: ‘Insult to Voters’

Fadnavis Rebukes Rahul Gandhi Over Maharashtra Poll Rigging Allegations: On Saturday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for "insulting" the people of Maharashtra and women voters after he accused the BJP of rigging the 2024 state assembly election in their favour.

Fadnavis claimed that the allegations made by Gandhi, explicit or otherwise, represented his admission of defeat of the Congress Party in the upcoming assembly election in Bihar, and challenged him not to comfort himself "falsely" by "speaking a lie."

In a post on X, Gandhi noted the rigging in a point by point manner: fake voters are inserted, voter turnout seems to be inflated, fake votes are then arranged and ultimately evidence is hidden.

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Gandhi said, "How to steal an election? Maharashtra assembly elections in 2024 were a blueprint for rigging democracy," while sharing an op-ed published in The Indian Express.

Referring to the Op-ed article, the Chief Minister said Gandhi should wake up from ignorance and understand the ground situation of the Congress Party's prospects to have difficulty in even getting future to be gloomy.

He also said that he insulted electors of Maharashtra by accusing fair elections in the state.

He said that election commission had already rejected his claims with evidence and published figures of increase voters in earlier elections and this one.

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"He is habituated to speaking lies. Gandhi believes that by lying every day, people will accept his claims as truth. He has made such allegations in the past. He doesn't know what he is saying. People listening to him don't understand what he says. I feel there is no need to react," he added.

I think it would be better advise to Rahul Gandhi, who used to be young leader to stop "convincing himself, wake up and work on the ground," said the senior BJP leader, adding that it was clear for future there is no way for the Congress party.

In the meantime, Fadnavis said the media seems to be more interested in a reconciliation between the cousins than Uddhav Thackeray or Raj Thackeray.

The BJP maintains that the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) received 2.50 crore (and won 30 of 48 seats in Maharashtra) votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections while the Mahayuti received 2.48 crore votes in the same elections (and won 17 constituencies).

Yet in assembly polls, the Mahayuti received 3.17 crores of votes (and won 235 of 288 seats) and the MVA, 2.17 crores of votes (and 50 seats), a party leader has said.

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