Pune: Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut on Saturday said the recent blaze in a govt office in Kolkata was not an accident but a conspiracy to set EVMs on fire to destroy evidence of rigged elections in West Bengal.“Till the time Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are in the govt, no election in India will be conducted in a fair manner,” Raut told reporters in Pune on Saturday.Portions of South 24-Parganas district’s new administrative building in Kolkata were gutted on Wednesday after a fire broke out on the third floor and spread to the eighth. Nearly 4,000 EVMs were reportedly damaged in the blaze. An SIT has been constituted to probe the fire at the govt office in Alipore.Targeting BJP over the blaze, Raut said, “This is the most critical issue of the country, which needs everybody’s attention. Those 4,000 EVMs contained the evidence of how BJP rigged the West Bengal polls to get results in its favour. Hence, these were set on fire by the govt there.”The Sena (UBT)’s Rajya Sabha member said, “The West Bengal election was a tight contest and nobody expected BJP to register a landslide victory. The act of setting EVMs on fire has given a clear picture about how BJP achieved the victory.”Raut said he had not seen a more ruthless politician in the country than Prime Minister Modi. He said, “Aurangzeb was born in Gujarat. Modi comes from the same soil that produced Aurangzeb.”Reacting to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ statement that Congress was a sinking boat, Raut said, “Congress will never sink. The party has played a major role before and after the independence of our country. Can BJP show 1% of the work Congress has done for the country?”
