New Delhi, June 24: The BJP on Tuesday slammed the Congress over Rahul Gandhi’s fresh comments on alleged irregularities in 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections and said the main opposition party raises questions without any evidence to cover up his failures.
This came after Gandhi once again flagged alleged irregularities in the Maharashtra assembly polls, claiming 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.
The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha shared on X a media report which claimed that in just six months between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Maharashtra assembly polls, Nagpur South West — the seat held by BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis — added 29,219 new voters.
Hitting back, BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari alleged that both the Congress and Gandhi are “anti-democracy” and “pro-Emergency”.
“To shield Rahul Gandhi’s 90 electoral losses, Congress party shoots and scoots without any saboot (evidence),” he said in a post on X.
“The truth is that every time Rahul fails, Congress attacks either voters, or judiciary or Election Commission,” he added.
The BJP spokesperson also slammed Gandhi for not responding to the Election Commission’s letter to him on the issue, alleging that the Congress “hates” democracy.
The Election Commission has formally written to Gandhi on his allegations of rigging in the 2024 Maharashtra polls, saying that all polls are held by it strictly as per laws passed by Parliament and rules.
In a letter e-mailed to him on June 12 in response to his article written in a leading daily, the EC has said the entire election process is conducted in a decentralised manner at the assembly constituency level, which involved more than 1,00,186 Booth Level Officers (BLOs), 288 Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), 139 General Observers, 41 Police Observers, 71 Expenditure Observers and 288 Returning Officers (ROS) appointed by the Commission.
“We presume that any issue regarding conduct of elections would have already been raised through election petitions filed in the competent court of law (high court) by the INC candidates,” it told Gandhi.
“However, if you still have any issues, you are welcome to write to us and the Commission is also willing to meet you in person at a mutually convenient date and time to discuss all issues,” the poll authority said. (PTI)
