The delay in deciding and declaring the Maharashtra chief minister despite the impressive mandate to the BJP is because the party wants someone who will blindly sign documents benefitting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favoured industrialist friends, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Nana Patole said on Tuesday.

“The BJP alliance is not concerned about the welfare of the people of Maharashtra. They want someone who will sell Maharashtra, which is why they will appoint a person as Chief Minister who will blindly sign documents benefiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favourite industrialists friends, causing the delay,” Nana Patole said.

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Earlier on Tuesday, Patole met Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi in Delhi to discuss the performance of Maharashtra’s assembly election. The newly elected MP from Nanded, Prof Ravindra Vasantrao Chavan, along with other Congress MPs from Maharashtra, was also present at the meeting.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Nana Patole stated that the party leadership had been briefed about the Maharashtra Assembly election results.

Patole refused to accept the Maharashtra Assembly election results on Tuesday, saying that the “EVM issue” is not being taken seriously.

“Whatever election results have come, they are not acceptable to anyone, not even to the people of Maharashtra. So have brainstormed on this issue and if you see social media in Maharashtra today, the public says that the government has not come to power through our votes. He said that since nobody is listening to problems raised by the people of alleged mismatch of votes, the Congress is left with no other option but to launch a mass movement against EVMs.

“No one is listening to this issue (EVMs), we also went to the Supreme Court, they said to prove it. Public sentiment says that we give our vote to X but it is being marked in the name of Y, so no one is listening to the problems. While the results were unexpected, they have not been accepted by the public. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has been demanding proof about these EVM discrepancies. Due to this, there is a need to launch a mass movement against EVMs,” Patole said.

Notably, in a related development on Tuesday, Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge said that like the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, Congress will run a nationwide campaign to hold elections through ballot papers, while he spoke at the Samvidhan Rakshak Abhiyaan function in Delhi.

“We don’t want elections through EVMs. We want elections through ballot paper,” Kharge said.

However, on Tuesday, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea seeking to revert to paper ballot voting in elections in the country, saying allegations of tampering of EVMs are raked up only after people lose polls.

“What happens is, when you win the election, EVMs are not tampered with. When you lose the election, EVMs are tampered (with),” remarked a bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice P B Varale.

Besides ballot paper voting, the rejected plea had sought several directions including a directive to the Election Commission to disqualify candidates for a minimum of five years if found guilty of distributing money, liquor or other material inducement to the voters during polls.