The Sharad Pawar-led NCP’s candidate Prashant Jagtap, who was defeated from Pune’s Hadapsar assembly constituency by Chetan Vitthal Tupe of the Ajit Pawar-led NCP in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly elections, has alleged that the BJP-dominated Mahayuti emerged victorious with the help of “Israeli technology” which was allegedly used to rig electronic voting machines (EVMs).

“We don’t accept this defeat since it is a result of changes made by the powers that be to EVM machines,” he said.

He proceeded to play an audio clip of a phone conservation allegedly made by unknown men manipulating the EVM machines. According to the audio clip played by Jagtap, a person was heard telling another person that EVMs at a constituency where a certain political party is stronger has to be “run faster or slower” in order to affect the election results.

“We will send the audio clip to the laboratory and find out whose voice it is. I will get a certificate from the lab after which I will announce the name of the person who spoke about rigging the EVMs. I have 10 audio clips. The audio clip which I played is a conversation about how the Purandar legislative assembly was rigged,” Jagtap claimed.

“Tomorrow, I will pay the Election Commission to match the VVPATs with the votes. Around 25 per cent of voting has been tampered. I say once again that Israeli technology has been used in this operation. We will also reveal the name of the person who used it. The people of Maharashtra and the country need to come out on the streets. The Central Election Commission and the Hon’ble Supreme Court need to wake up as well,” Jagtap said.

He said that it is not merely about whether somebody gets elected or not, but the question is whether Indian democracy will survive or not. He stated that if EVM machines are manipulated, then the entire electoral system will end up in the hands of a few rich people.”We want our allegations to reach the ears of the general public as well as the Central Election Commission and the Supreme Court,” Jagtap said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP’s candidate Rohit Pawar spoke about alleged irregularities and manipulation of EVMs at a press conference.

“Not a single candidate of our party has won where Muslim voters are more than 98 per cent. There are 98 per cent Muslim voters in Malegaon Central where something went seriously wrong. It is from Form 20 we will get to know how many votes have been cast per booth. However, it has not been given to us so far and we demand that it must be given to us as soon as possible. It turns out that when you manipulate the machine, the clock in that machine is also manipulated, so we should get the machine report,” Rohit Pawar said.