File of photographs of the main Minister Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis. | Photo Credit: PTI
Mahashtra Main Minister Devendra Fadnavis launched a sharp attack on Congress on Friday and accused him of hypocrisy of his claims of “theft of voices”. He said that the fresh revelation of the BJP MLA Atul Bhosale from the Satar district revealed how the leaders of Congress joined the irregular vote during last year’s elections in the assembly.
Mr. Fadnavis, who spoke to reporters in Mumbai, claimed that Mr. Bhosale had submitted evidence that shows that relatives and close helpers of the former main minister and leader of Congress Prithvi, Chavan, handed over voices in more than one election district. Mr. Bhosale defeated Mr. Chavan in Karad South during the elections in November 2024.
“Congress was completely exposed. Our MLA has shown how (Congress) be indulged in Chori’s vote (theft). Now he is on Rahul Gandhi to explain these revelations,” said Mr. Fadnavis.
Notes come in response to the previous accusation of Mr. Gandhi of the “Chori” voice, where he accused the election commission of work in favor of BJP. Mr. Gandhi quoted data from 2024 of Lok Sabha and claimed that more than one lakh votes were “stolen” in the Mahadevapura segment as part of the Mahadevapura Central constituency.
Support for Mr. Gandhi, a new report published by August 16, by voting for democracy (VFD), a civil action group led by election experts, identified serious anomalies in the elections to the Mahashrath Assembly in 2024.
The report called Dysfunctional ECI and the weapon of India’s electoral system has alleged vulnerabilities in microchips, inserting, loading units (SLUS) and electoral roles, which warns that the Indian electronic electoral process is “already independent” and has become susceptible to manipulation since 2017.
The VFD also revealed a sudden increase in electoral participation during the November 2024 elections. At 17:00, the participation was 58.22%, but jumped to 66.05%by midnight – an increase in 7.83%, which was almost 48 lamps of other votes. Unusually high jumps were recorded in Nanded, Jalgaon, Hingoli, Salapur, Beed and Dhule, added.
The group noted that 25 seats were decided by less than 3,000 votes and 69 seats below 10,000, suggesting that even minor irregularities could significantly affect the results.
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Published – August 22 2025 20:28
