BJP leader Pravin Darekar, who proposed the name of Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra chief minister, ridiculed senior Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut’s reaction to the BJP-backed Mahayuti’s landslide victory, shortly after Raut questioned the role of electronic voting machines in the assembly poll results declared on Saturday.

“Sanjay Raut needs to land his aircraft on the ground. Victory cannot be achieved by merely abusing. He needs to understand the ground realities of the state. Maharashtra will further progress only when there is a BJP government both at the state and Centre. This is the reason the public voted for us. I thank the Ladli Behenas in the state,” Darekar said.

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Earlier on Saturday, Sanjay Raut expressed grave concerns about the election results saying, “They (Mahayuti) have done some ‘gadbad’. Kuch to gadbad hai (Something’s fishy). They have stolen some of our seats. This cannot be the public’s decision. Even the public does not agree with these results.

“In every election seat, money-counting machines were installed. Is it possible for Shinde to get 60 seats, Ajit Pawar to get 40 seats and BJP to get 125 seats? The people of this state are not dishonest. We have faith in the people of Maharashtra,” he told media persons here.

Shortly after Raut alleged a “conspiracy” behind Maharashtra assembly election results, Uddhav-led Shiv Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi too refused to accept the verdict.

She said the results are quite unacceptable and raise questions about the fairness of the election. “The results have come as a surprise. The way our lead of 151 seats in Lok Sabha was reduced to this in the assembly elections, the question which arises is–how did such a difference come about. I had visited so many places in Maharashtra where people told me that they would vote for us, but we should pay attention to EVMs,” she said.

Incidentally, Raut had criticised EVMs even after the results of the recent Haryana assembly elections were announced in October. He had claimed that there was merely a 0.6 percent difference between the Congress and the BJP, but the BJP won 30 seats more.

“Evidence regarding EVM malfunctioning came during Lok Sabha elections as well. But what did the Supreme Court do? The Chief Justice is about to retire. What has he done? He didn’t take a decision regarding EVMs. Crores of people in the country don’t trust EVMs. EVMs have been rejected across the world. However, our Supreme Court gave a clean chit to EVMs. This is against the Constitution,” Raut had said after the Haryana assembly election results in October.