Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis alleges 'deep state' behind EVM allegations

CM Fadnavis pays a floral tribute to RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar in Nagpur

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has alleged a ‘deep state' conspiracy behind the allegations of tampering with the electronic voting machines (EVM) in the recent elections. He said the Maoist-related frontal organisations - some of which were part of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra - had participated in an international meeting held recently in Kathmandu.

Responding to a debate on the Governor's speech in the Maharashtra Assembly, Fadnavis said the agenda of the Kathmandu meeting was to implement the ‘fake EVM narrative' in the country, with specific emphasis on Maharashtra. He said their motive was to create anarchy by eroding the public's trust in the constitutional bodies of the country.

"See, it was decided in Kathmandu. I don't question your patriotism. But I request you to not allow others to use your shoulders to fire their guns. It is a deep state activity. There are some people (foreign entities) who don't like the progress India is making," Fadnavis said.

According to Fadnavis, the frontal organisations that worked for Naxal (Maoist activities) and campaigned for the Congress-led Opposition were identified by the then home minister R R Patil while replying to questions by MLAs in 2013. Some of them were identified by the Manmohan Singh government in the Lok Sabha in 2014. "The Parliament has evidence of a foreign hand in managing the Indian elections (in favour of the BJP's opposition)," he said while quoting intelligence reports.

The CM said when the armed Maoists weakened, the movement shifted to urban areas where the youth have been brainwashed to work against the constitutional bodies. "It is a formative age when one has a tendency to reject everything that comes one's way. The youth is prepared for a revolt. What does a revolt mean? It means rejecting Dr Ambedkar's constitution and creating anarchy," he said.

Fadnavis' statement came a day after the government tabled a bill to identify and neutralise the Maoist sympathiser frontal organisations that would be deemed unlawful. The CM recalled the anti-EVM rally that had been held recently. He said the main speaker, a lawyer, was a defender of terrorists. He reiterated the charge of vote jihad in certain Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies.

Countering the Opposition's charge that 75 lakh additional votes were cast in the last hour of the Assembly polling, Fadnavis said, "This is yet another fake narrative which we will destroy." He produced the election commission's official statistics to prove the Opposition wrong. He said only 17 lakh votes, not 75 lakh, were polled in the last hour. He said the VVPAT was nothing but a ballot paper polling that could be verified. "People voted for us and elected us. That's all. EMV means ‘every vote for Maharashtra'. Whenever the results went against them, the Opposition blamed EVMs."

Fadnavis also lashed out at Sharad Pawar for being a party to the fake narrative. "Pawar-saheb had never raised a question over EVMs, but this time he came up with a new logic that the small states have been given to the Opposition while the bigger ones went to the BJP," he said, adding that the mock ballot paper polling in Markadvadi village was forced on the villagers who were threatened by the NCP and the Opposition. "We don't have tolerance for such ‘dadagiri'."

Fadnavis began his first speech in the legislature of the current term by recounting the way he and his family were targeted by political rivals. "It was a sort of record that some people criticised us consistently on a daily basis. They created an atmosphere that actually led the people to sympathise with me. The people had seen five years of me as the CM, which were for the welfare of the masses," he said.

"Remember I'm a modern ‘Abhimanyu' who knows how to break the trap. I'm standing here again. The credit goes to my party, our Mahayuti partners and the people of Maharashtra," he said, quoting a poem that loosely translates to him being a light that burned even in storms.

Fadnavis assured the house that his government would not scrap any scheme or back out from fulfilling promises. Regarding the immensely popular ‘Ladki Bahin Yojana', he said the beneficiaries who had availed of the scheme fraudulently would be removed because the state monies were to be used only for those eligible.

Reacting to Fadnavis' statements, state Congress president Nana Patole said if such frontal anti-social organisations were found in Bharat Jodo, nobody had stopped the BJP government from taking action against them.