The leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra legislative assembly, Ajit Pawar on Saturday expressed his faith in electronic voting machines (EVM) and said he has full trust in them ‘personally.’ Pawar said that the people who lose the elections start blaming the EVMs and fail to accept the mandate of the people.
He pointed out that if EVMs were faulty, the opposition parties would not be in power in states like Chattisgarh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He observed, “It is not possible to manipulate EVMs in our country. It is a big system altogether, lots of checks and balances are involved.”
If somehow it is proven that EVMs were manipulated, then there will be big chaos in the country. I don’t think anyone would dare to do such things. Sometimes some people lose elections but they think that they can’t lose it, then they start putting allegations about EVMs but in… pic.twitter.com/gbQ7yiz6El
— ANI (@ANI) April 8, 2023
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader remarked, “If somehow it is proven that EVMs were manipulated, then there will be big chaos in the country. I don’t think anyone would dare to do such things.”
In response to the accusation levelled by the opposition parties, particularly the Congress, he added, “Sometimes some people lose elections but they think that they can’t lose it, then they start putting allegations about EVMs but in reality, it is the actual mandate of the people.”
The NCP leader also praised the leadership of PM Modi and said that it is not correct to target the PM over his education. He said, “Under PM Modi’s name, the party came to power in 2014 and reached sever remote places. After winning, a lot of statements were made against him but he got popular and under his leadership, BJP won in various states and repeated the same in 2019. If this is not the magic of PM Modi then what is? As far as education in politics is concerned, it is considered to be not much of importance.”
Notably, Ajit Pawar’s comments supporting EVM come just weeks after several opposition parties, including the NCP, had written to the Election Commission expressing concerns regarding the plan to allow remote voting for migrant voters using EVMs. The opposition leaders had met in a meeting called by NCP supremo Sharad Pawar.
Ajit Pawar also concurred with Sharad Pawar’s statement on Gautam Adani, after the NCP supremo stated that he disagreed with the opposition’s demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigation into the Adani matter.
Breaking ranks with the opposition parties and exposing cracks in his coalition with the Congress in Maharashtra, the NCP supremo on Friday posited that he believed the Adani Group is being targeted by unknown entities whose motives he questioned.
“He is our top leader. If he took a stand on some topic, then we shall not discuss that again. At a time when he has spoken about the issue, it means that he has spoken about the party’s position. We all stand with him,” Ajit Pawar noted.
He was addressing the media after speculations that he had gone incommunicado and clarified, “It pained me when I read unsubstantiated news reports about me being unreachable. I was at home due to ill health. I was not unreachable.” He complained that the tone and tenor of the news items on Friday were defamatory.
Today Sharad Pawar also reiterated his stand on Adani issue, clearly distancing NCP from Congress in the matter. “Nowadays, the names of Ambani-Adani are being taken to criticise the government but we need to think about their contribution to the country. I think other issues such as unemployment, price rise, and farmers issues are more important and should be raised by the Opposition,” he said.
On Friday, Marathi news outlets made references to a number of previous occasions when Ajit Pawar had ’caused trouble’ for his uncle Sharad Pawar and the party, including the 2019 incident when he teamed up with the incumbent Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to take the oath of office at Raj Bhavan.
The former deputy CM of Maharashtra recently differed from opposition parties who were targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his educational qualification and asked, “In the year 2014 did the public vote for Prime Minister Modi on the basis of his degree? It was the charisma he had created which helped him win the elections.”
He proclaimed, “Now he has been representing the country for nine years. It is not fair to ask about his degree. We should question him on issues like inflation and unemployment. Minister’s degree is not an important issue.”
