Nagpur, Jun 7 (PTI) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of “insulting” the people of Maharashtra and women voters after he alleged that the 2024 state assembly elections were rigged in the BJP’s favour.

Fadnavis said the claims made by Gandhi amounted to his admission of the Congress’s defeat in the upcoming Bihar assembly elections and appealed to him to refrain from “falsely comforting” himself by lying.

In a post on X, Gandhi outlined the alleged electoral irregularities in a stepwise manner — fake voters are added, voter turnout is inflated, bogus voting is facilitated, and evidence is subsequently hidden.

“How to steal an election? Maharashtra assembly elections in 2024 were a blueprint for rigging democracy,” Gandhi said while sharing an op-ed published in The Indian Express.

Pointing to the Op-ed article, Fadnavis said Gandhi should awake from ignorance and understand the ground reality of the Congress party’s grim future.

“Unless and until Rahul Gandhi understands the ground-level facts and stops lying to himself and giving false comfort and promises, his party will never win. He should awake (from ignorance), otherwise, he will keep talking such things which are devoid of facts,” he told reporters.

He alleged that Gandhi insulted the electors of Maharashtra by casting aspersions on the fairness of elections.

“He has insulted voters and ladki bahins (beneficiaries of a state government scheme for poor women). I condemn his statement,” he said.

The Election Commission had earlier debunked his claims with evidence and released figures of increased voters in the previous elections and the latest one, he said.

“He is habituated to speaking lies. Gandhi believes that by lying every day, people will accept his claims as truth. He has made such allegations in the past. He doesn’t know what he is saying. People listening to him don’t understand what he says. I feel there is no need to react,” he added.

The senior BJP leader advised Gandhi to stop “convincing himself, wake up, and work on the ground”, claiming Congress has no future.

Meanwhile, Fadnavis quipped the media seems more enthusiastic than Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray about the possible reconciliation between the two cousins.

According to the BJP, the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) received 2.50 crore votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections (and won 30 seats out of 48 in Maharashtra), while the Mahayuti got 2.48 crore votes (and won 17 constituencies).

However, in the assembly polls, the Mahayuti bagged 3.17 crore votes (winning 235 out of 288 seats), while the MVA had to be content with 2.17 crore votes (bagging only 50 seats), a party leader has said. PTI CLS NSK