'Chip in his brain is missing': Fadnavis rejects Rahul Gandhi’s Maharashtra polls ‘stolen’ remark

Mumbai: Rattled by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s claims of votes being stolen by the BJP in collusion with the Election Commission during the 2024 Maharashtra polls, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis dismissed the allegation as baseless.

"I think that Rahul Gandhi needs to get his brain checked. Either his brain is stolen or there is a chip missing from his brain, that’s the reason he is making such comments,” Fadnavis told reporters in Goa.

State Congress President Harshavardhan Sapkal said: “The battle is big. The battle is for democracy. The battle is to save society.”

Meanwhile, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-headed NCP (SP) slammed the BJP and EC.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and Worli MLA Aaditya Thackeray said whichever political ideology you belong to, if you are a true patriot, true Indian, one must see how Rahul Gandhi exposed the EC.

“We have long said that the election commission has ensured that India, for the last few years, hasn’t had a free and fair election. We pretend to be a democracy but we truly aren’t in the fairest sense. Rahul Gandhi has logically, and with proof and facts, with absolute transparency, exposed the Election Commission. The ECI must face Rahul Gandhi on a stage and answer the questions and proofs presented today,” he said.

Aaditya said that ECI can change its name to ‘Entirely Compromised Commission’. “It’s not about elections, it’s about our nation!,” he said.

NCP (SP) MLA and former minister Jitendra Awhad said: "I have said this time and again that vote chori was the only reason for the success of BJP winning the election.”

“A brilliant expose via a detailed presentation by Rahul Gandhi on the dubious voting patterns in our elections. Now, it is the turn of the ECI to provide the 'CCTV Footage' and the 'Electronic Voter List’. People of India need answers. The ball is now in the court of the Election Commission of India,” said NCP (SP) national spokesperson Clyde Crasto.

Congress Legislature Party leader Vijay Wadettiwar said that from the very beginning people of the country had suspected -“dal me kuch kala hai”.