Devendra Fadnavis said the BJP will fight the upcoming Assembly polls with its alliance partners.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today took a jibe at the opposition over the allegations of malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines or EVM, saying that it is a machine, which is unable to cast votes on its own.

"BJP is communicating and reaching out to people and voters, while the opposition is communicating with the EVM. The opposition is unable to understand that EVM is a machine and does not cast votes. Votes are cast by voters and if we communicate with voters we can certainly get votes," the chief minister said.

He said that the state had never seen such "frustrated, desperate and directionless" opposition in its history. "I feel the opposition is very frustrated, desperate and has become completely directionless. Maharashtra had never seen this kind of opposition in its history," he added.

Mr Fadnavis said the BJP will fight the upcoming Assembly polls with its alliance partners. "I have told the Shiv Sena that first we will finalise the seats of our alliance partners and then share other seats

between ourselves as per the already decided formula," he said.

Earlier, Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe was detained by the Nagpur police as he planned to hold a protest before the chief minister's "Maha Janadesh Yatra".

The police action drew condemnation from senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan, who asked in a tweet whether asking questions to the CM in public interest was a crime.

MPCC chief Balasaheb Thorat also asked whether it was a crime to stage a protest.

When questioned about Atul Londhe's detention, Mr Fadnavis said that police is responsible for maintaining law and order in the state and they take decisions accordingly. "Nobody is stopped from protesting in a democratic manner, but some people have the habit of protesting only for the sake of publicity. It is not the CM, but the police department that takes preventive steps to address such issues," he added.