PUNE: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said Rahul Gandhi must have got his “poll fraud” script written by “Salim-Javed”, hitting back at the Leader of Opposition over his allegations against the Election Commission of India (ECI).“There are no facts in his statements. He contacted ‘Salim-Javed’ and got a script written for himself. It is only for entertainment purposes,” Fadnavis told reporters in Pune.Rahul accused the ECI and BJP of committing “poll fraud” by manipulating voters’ lists. He iterated his claim in Karnataka on Friday.Before that, Rahul participated in a protest rally in Bihar to oppose the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by the ECI. In the dinner meeting he hosted for the opposition leaders, the members of the INDIA bloc decided to take out a protest march to the ECI office in Delhi on August 11 against the SIR, alleged discrepancies in the voters’ list and other issues.Reacting to Rahul’s stand on the SIR in Bihar, Fadnavis said, “He [Rahul] says that there is a problem in the voters’ list. We also have been saying that there are some issues with the voters’ list, and demanding a comprehensive revision of the list. When ECI actually started the revision in Bihar, he started opposing it. What does he want? I think he has found the reason he was looking to blame for his party’s defeat.”Meanwhile, VBA chief Prakash Ambedkar appealed to Rahul to file an intervening petition in Supreme Court to support his plea against the ECI.“I appreciate the way Rahul Gandhi has explained the votes fraud. But this battle cannot be won on the streets. It will have to be fought in the court of law,” Ambedkar told reporters in Pune. “We went to Bombay high court against ECI over voters’ discrepancies, but it was rejected. We have challenged HC’s order in Supreme Court. If the opposition members file intervening pleas in support of our plea, the case will be strengthened.“
