Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday targeted the opposition Congress and his leader Rahul Gandhi over allegations of “vote theft” and said that if he had evidence, he should knock the court or the Election Commission.
Shiv Sena leader Shinde told reporters at an event here that he has insulted the people of Maharashtra by making such “baseless claims”.
Gandhi on Thursday claimed that the connivance between the BJP and the Election Commission has “great criminal fraud” in the elections. For this, he cited analysis of voter list in a constituency in Karnataka last year.
A day later, he alleged that the Election Commission and BJP together “stole” the Lok Sabha elections and at least three states “theft of votes”.
Gandhi had also alleged that the results of the Maharashtra assembly elections confirmed the suspicion of the Congress that votes were stolen.
When asked about such allegations, Shinde criticized the opposition for publicly ‘absurd allegations’ without naming anyone.
He said, “If they have evidence, they should go to the court or the Election Commission. By making such baseless claims, they have insulted the citizens of Maharashtra who have chosen Mahayuti (BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP), as well as insulting our sisters, brothers, farmers and people of the state.”
Soon after Rahul Gandhi made the allegation that “vote theft” is a “atomic bomb” on our democracy, Karnataka and Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officers asked the former Congress chief to share the names of the voters, who claimed that they were “wrong” in the voter list.
At the same time, the election officials had also sought a manifesto signed to start “necessary action” in the case.
The Election Commission on Friday accused Gandhi of repeating the old allegations of irregularities set up by the Supreme Court and asked the Congress leader to make a written announcement or apologize for his claims about wrong entries in the voter list.
