Mumbai: A day after leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi alleged “match fixing” between BJP and ECI, state Congress chief Harshawardhan Sapkal on Sunday demanded narco tests on chief electoral officer (CEO) S Chockalingam and then additional CEO Kiran Kulkarni to expose the truth in Maharashtra’s “vote theft” in the 2024 assembly election.Sapkal said it is BJP and CM Devendra Fadnavis who have jumped in with rebuttals, instead of the election watchdog. Fadnavis had on Saturday called Rahul’s allegations an outright lie and in an article published in a national newspaper and a Marathi daily on Sunday, he said the Congress MP has been repudiating the mandate given by the people, instead of introspecting on the defeat. Accusing Rahul of constantly “insulting” the democratic process, Fadnavis said he is preparing his excuses for future defeats in assembly polls, including in Bihar.Sapkal dubbed Fadnavis’s reply as laughable and an evasive attempt to distract the public. He said Fadnavis and BJP-led Mahayuti alliance are the ones who directly benefited from the vote manipulation and are enjoying the spoils of power. Yet, he added, they are offering a defence. “Stop acting like a judicial icon. Your (Fadnavis’s) governance resembles that of a corrupt police chief. His (the CM) responses are weak and superficial and fail to address the actual issues.” AICC general secretary Ramesh Chennithala said BJP’s immediate response to the key issues raised by Rahul confirms the match fixing allegations. “If there was no rigging, why was the mock poll in Markadwadi (in Solapur district in Dec 2024) blocked?” he asked, adding that the stain on the assembly election must be wiped clean and ECI must offer a clarification to restore public trust in democracy. Chennithala said what happened in the assembly polls was not accidental but was a meticulously planned operation that hijacked the election for securing power. In response to Rahul’s allegations of poll rigging, Chockalingam said such charges were not expected from a leader of a political party like Congress, “that too on officers whose only loyalty is to the Constitution and the people”.
