Former NCP-SP MLA Sanjay Chavan made a sensational claim on Wednesday. He said a person called Narayandas Patel from Gujarat contacted him and offered to "rig the EVMs" in his wife's favour in the 2024 Assembly elections. Chavan's wife, Dipika, was contesting the election on an NCP-SP ticket from the Baglan Assembly constituency. However, she lost to BJP candidate Dilip Borse by 1.29 lakh votes.
"Narayandas Patel, who claimed to be an IT expert from Bhuj (Gujarat), contacted me before the election. He said that he would make my wife win by 50,000 to 1.5 lakh votes if I spend Rs 5 to 8 crore. He added that if I don't give him the amount, he would go to the rival BJP candidate and make him win," said Chavan.
He added, "After hearing this proposal, I immediately discussed it with the former NCP-SP state president Jayant Patil and gave him complete information. Patil advised us to go before the people honestly and accept the vote that the people give. Hence, I rejected the proposal and focused on the campaign."
This comes only a few days after NCP-SP chief Sharad Pawar alleged that the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) was approached by two persons who claimed they could help the alliance win 160 of the 288 seats through "EVM management."
“MVA rejected the offer as we wanted to play it fair,” Pawar said. However, he did not name the two persons or specify their organisational affiliation.
Shiv Sena-UBT MP Sanjay Raut claimed that the same two people had offered to secure the party’s victory in 60-65 difficult seats by "managing EVMs."
"I was present at that meeting, where Uddhav Thackeray told them that he believes in the democratic system and rejected their offer,” Raut said.
