nShiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal, days after their losses in the Delhi assembly polls, with a message to strengthen the fight for free and fair elections.
Aditya Thackeray, on a whirlwind tour of the national capital, also met the party's parliamentarians amid reports of dissent in the ranks and some leaders planning to join the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena.
He met Rahul Gandhi late on Wednesday and called on Kejriwal, the former Delhi chief minister, whose party faced defeat in last week's assembly elections on Thursday. "Is there any difference between the BJP and the Election Commission (EC)?... I don't even know where my vote goes. There needs to be more clarity on EVMs (electronic voting machines) and VVPATs (voter-verifiable paper audit trail)," Aditya Thackeray said.
After calling on Kejriwal, Aditya Thackeray described the meeting as a gesture of friendship. "Governments keep coming and going but relationships continue. We met Kejriwal as a gesture of friendship. However, our democracy is not free and fair. Elections are not free and fair," he told reporters after the meeting.
He was accompanied by party MPs Sanjay Raut, Arvind Sawant, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Sanjay Dina Patil and Bhausaheb Wakchaure, among others.
The Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP (SP) had alleged irregularities in the conduct of last year's Maharashtra assembly election, claiming that there were more registered voters in the state than its total adult population. The three parties, which formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) grouping, claimed 39 lakh new voters were added between the Lok Sabha elections in May and the November assembly polls.
