Rahul needs to come out of 'dark shadow of defeat': Bawankule on his 'match-fixing' remark

Nagpur: Maharashtra BJP chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Saturday slammed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his allegation of rigging and "match-fixing" in the state assembly polls, saying his party will not grow until he comes out of the "dark shadow of defeat".

Urging Gandhi to introspect, he said the Congress leader and the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), of which the grand old party is a constituent, became overconfident after their good performance in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and forgot the election basics of door-to-door campaign and public interaction.

Gandhi, in his article titled "Match-fixing Maharashtra" published in The Indian Express on Saturday alleged that the outcome of the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections is glaringly strange and that the voter turnout figures were inflated.

In a post on X, the Congress leader said the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections were a "blueprint for rigging democracy" and this "match-fixing" would next happen in Bihar and "anywhere the BJP is losing".

"My article shows how this happened, step by step: Step 1: Rig the panel for appointing the Election Commission. Step 2: Add fake voters to the roll. Step 3: Inflate voter turnout. Step 4: Target the bogus voting exactly where BJP needs to win. Step 5: Hide the evidence," he said.

Responding to a query about Gandhi's allegations, Bawankule, who is also a state minister, said that the Congress leader should have done introspection.

"Rahul Gandhi and MVA became overconfident after they won 31 seats, while BJP-led alliance bagged 17 seats in the state in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and forgot the election basics of door-to-door campaign and public interaction as a result of that overconfidence," the BJP leader said.

The people of Maharashtra trusted the Mahayuti and the work of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The MVA received 2.50 crore votes, while the Mahayuti got 2.48 crore votes in the Lok Sabha elections. However, in the assembly polls, the Mahayuti bagged 3.17 crore votes, while the MVA had to be satisfied with 2.17 crore votes, he said.

"Rahul Gandhi should understand that MVA lost 33 lakh votes as compared to its Lok Sabha elections. He should study that as per the 2009 voters' list, there were 7.29 crore voters enrolled in Maharashtra for the Lok Sabha elections. Similarly, the number of voters increased to 7.59 crore in Maharashtra assembly polls held the same year. At that time, their government was in power at the Centre and in the state. So how did these 30 lakh voters increase?" he asked.

Bawankule said the Election Commission had gone door-to-door to register voters at that time and the voter lists were corrected this time as well.

"Rahul Gandhi has become restless and he cannot talk on the development agenda of PM Modi. I think his party will not grow until he comes out of the dark shadow of defeat," he added.

In the November 2024 Maharashtra assembly polls, the Mahayuti retained power in the state, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats. The BJP won 132 seats, the Shiv Sena 57 and the NCP got 41 seats.

In the MVA, the Shiv Sena (UBT) won 20 seats, the Congress 16 and the NCP (SP) candidates won 10 seats.

When asked about the possible tie-up between the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Bawankule said it was the prerogative of those parties to decide whom to join hands with.

"BJP does not have any right to talk about it. Besides, our voters are also not interested in it as people need development. Mahayuti fought on the agenda of development and will work on its development issue and MVA is not interested in other issues.