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Maharashtra CM Fadnavis and Deputy CM Shinde dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s claims of the 2024 elections being “stolen,” accusing him of misinformation.
Rahul Gandhi has claimed that there weren’t isolated glitches but “vote theft” and demanded the immediate release of machine-readable digital voter rolls as well as CCTV footage. (Photo: PTI file)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday rejected Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s claim that the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections were “stolen,” accusing him of spreading misinformation to mislead the public.
“Either his brain has been stolen, or a chip in his brain is missing. That is why he is making such statements often,” news agency PTI quoted Fadnavis as saying. The Maharashtra CM was in Goa to attend an event as the chief guest.
While speaking to the reporters in New Delhi, Shinde offered a factual rebuttal, “Maharashtra has 1,00,186 polling booths. If 70 additional voters were added per booth, that would amount to around 7 million new voters — a perfectly plausible and transparent increase, especially after the launch of our Ladki Bahin Yojana, which galvanised women voters across the state.”
Shinde pointed out that higher voter turnout is not evidence of rigging, but a reflection of the people’s enthusiasm to support the Mahayuti alliance, which they believe is delivering on development and welfare.
“It is disrespectful and irresponsible for Rahul Gandhi to allege fraud whenever his party loses. His remarks are not just an insult to the Election Commission, but also to millions of our beloved sisters, brothers, and hardworking farmers who participated in the democratic process with full faith.”
Meanwhile, in an interview with PTI, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said, “Rahul Gandhi is attempting to shape a narrative with his baseless allegations, but the public won’t accept it.”
Their remarks came after Rahul Gandhi, while addressing reporters at the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, claimed that the Maharashtra election results confirmed the Congress party’s suspicion that the polls had been manipulated.
“Not giving machine-readable voter list convinced us that the Election Commission (EC) colluded with the BJP to ‘steal’ elections in Maharashtra,” alleged the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
“They said we are going to destroy the CCTV footage. This was surprising to us because there was a question in Maharashtra about a massive voting after 5.30 pm for the numbers to add up. Our people knew that in the polling booths, no such thing happened. There was no massive voting after 5.30 pm,” he further said.
“These two things made us believe with reasonable certainty that the Election Commission of India was colluding with the BJP to steal elections,” the LoP added.
The BJP-led Mahayuti alliance achieved a decisive win in the November 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
The BJP alone secured 132 seats, while its allies Shiv Sena and the NCP won 57 and 41 seats, respectively. In contrast, the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) fared poorly, with Congress winning just 16 seats, Sharad Pawar’s NCP (SP) taking 10, and Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) securing 20.
Rahul Gandhi also alleged irregularities in the voter list in Karnataka, claiming a “vote chori” of over 1,00,000 votes in one constituency. He cited 11,965 duplicate entries, 40,009 fake or invalid addresses, 10,452 single-address voters, 4,132 invalid photos, and 33,692 instances of misuse of Form 6.
In response, the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer requested Rahul Gandhi to provide a signed declaration listing the names of voters he claimed were either excluded or ineligible.
“What I say to the people is my word. Take it as an oath. This is their (EC) data, and we are displaying their data,” he replied.
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