The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tapped on social media trends to troll its favourite target, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and defend the Election Commission of India (EC) over the Maharashtra municipal corporation election results, in which the Mahayuti was set for a big win, defeating reunions of the Thackeray as well as Pawar families.
Counting of votes was held for 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, including the prestigious Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai, on Friday. The BJP-Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde faction) was ahead in at least 1,635 of the over 2,800 wards across the corporations, restricting its rivals to around 190 leads. Track BMC election results here
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena and Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena contested as an alliance. The Mahayuti alliance was poised to cross the majority mark of 114 needed to wrest power in the BMC, a Thackeray fort.
The Congress, with its ally Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, managed to wrest power in Latur but was nowhere close to winning the civic polls overall.
Rahul brings up vote chori charge, BJP counters with Varun Dhawan meme
The BJP on Friday attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with a “khandani chor” barb and the currently viral meme involving actor Varun Dhawan, accusing him of misleading people by discrediting the Maharashtra civic poll process while the counting of votes was underway.
This came in response to Rahul Gandhi asserting that “vote chori [theft] is an anti-national act” and accused the Election Commission of “gaslighting” citizens amid a row over the quality of ‘indelible’ ink used in marker pens during the voting for Maharashtra civic polls held on Thursday.
Gandhi shared on X a media report on the row which stated that “opposition, voters cry foul over fading ink markers”.
“Election commission gaslighting citizens is how trust has collapsed in our democracy. Vote Chori is an anti-national act,” Gandhi said in his post on X.
Mocking Rahul Gandhi, the BJP seemingly used a meme template inspired by Varun Dhawan’s viral one-sided smile and morphed it. “. . [Legacy, prestige, discipline],” BJP’s official X handle captioned the post, taking a veiled dig at the repeated poll defeats of Congress.
Varun Dhawan’s one-sided smile has become a viral meme and social media rage amid the promotions of his upcoming film Border 2.
“Mummy me phirse election haar gaya [Mother, I lost again],” a message on the meme video BJP posted said.
Rahul Gandhi has long been alleging massive voter fraud carried out by the Election Commission of India at the behest of the BJP. He held a series of press conferences the Congress branded as bombshell pressers in which he showed what he described were “evidence” of mass deletion of voters, fraudulent entries and other discrepancies.
Reacting to Gandhi’s fresh remarks, BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla, in a post on X, said, “Bahana [excuse] brigade back! Accepting defeat before counting ends?”
“Rahul Back to doing what he does best — discredit, distort and disinform. ‘Khandani chor’ now regurgitating claims of Thackerays,” he charged.
Poonawalla also sought to know what came out of Gandhi’s ‘vote chori‘ allegations on the Bihar elections.
Another BJP national spokesperson, Pradeep Bhandari, said, “Every season the ‘parivarvadi’, to escape scrutiny, come up with one or the other allegation, which turns out damp squib in the court of law and the court of public opinion.”
“The anti-national party, which gets backing from Pakistan, is searching for a scapegoat after looking at imminent defeat in the BMC elections,” Bhandari said on X.