Raut alleges Gyanesh Kumar, Fadnavis and Shinde engineered Sena (UBT) defeat in 2024 Assembly polls

Sanjay Raut, MP of the Thackeray faction, said in Pune that his party was subjected to an "artificial defeat" in the 2024 Assembly elections. He alleged that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had together engineered it. Raut was speaking to reporters in Pune.

Sentiment against Gyanesh Kumar is running high across the country at present. Serious allegations are being levelled against him over irregularities in the SIR process and corruption in Form 6. The opposition INDIA bloc and the CJP have announced an agitation against him. Raut's statement comes against this backdrop.

Raut claimed that people now also accept that the Shiv Sena had won that election. According to him, the mood in the country is changing again, which makes it clear that the real Shiv Sena belongs to Balasaheb Thackeray and Uddhav Thackeray, and that everything else is "duplicate". He also said the Supreme Court would now end this game. He claimed that anger against the Election Commission has flared across the country because of the wrongs the Commission and the then Supreme Court committed during the last hearing.

Raut alleged that the Shiv Sena had won the 2024 Assembly election as well. He alleged that Gyanesh Kumar's doings have now come out, and that it was because of such doings that his party was made to lose. He said that if Gyanesh Kumar were held to account and elections were held immediately, the "sold-out" faction and the BJP would be wiped out.

Raut said, "Gyanesh Kumar is a corrupt and scam-ridden man of the first order. Where has he run off to now? Is he absconding? We were saying from the start that there has been a big scam in the SIR process. Now two other Election Commissioners have also expressed dissent on this decision, which is why the issue has heated up across the country."

Responding to Chief Minister Fadnavis's statement on the opposition's allegations, Raut said, "Why does the BJP have such attachment to Gyanesh Kumar? Has Devendra Fadnavis been made the Election Commission's lawyer? If the Election Commission is a constitutional body, let it present its own case."

Raut also alleged that voters' names are being deleted in the name of SIR. He said, "We have no objection to the names of dead voters being removed in the SIR. But removing names where the Shiv Sena used to get more votes, or deleting the names of a particular community in West Bengal to keep them from voting, is not what is called the policy of SIR. This is outright daylight robbery of democracy."

Raut further said that Fadnavis, Shinde and Sunetra Pawar are not ready to speak on the public's questions. According to him, the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister travel to Delhi on alternate days, while on the ground in the state only the Shiv Sena is at work.