Don't hold local polls till 'faulty' voter rolls rectified: Oppn; CM terms it bid to set narrative

Mumbai, Oct 15 (PTI) Opposition leaders in Maharashtra on Wednesday strongly demanded that local bodies polls in the state not be conducted until the electoral rolls are fully rectified, and said using "highly compromised, faulty and manipulated" voter lists for elections would undermine democratic integrity.

Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray, NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil and Congress's Balasaheb Thorat made this demand during a joint press conference after they met State Election Commissioner (SEC) Dinesh Waghmare and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Chockalingam to raise concerns over alleged irregularities in the voters' list.

The local body polls are likely to be held in the next two months or early next year.

These leaders said the ruling parties were trying to normalise irregularities related to voters' list.

Uddhav Thackeray said, "Either hold fair elections or just select some candidates and finish the procedure. Officials cited the Supreme Court to justify proceeding with polls, but nowhere has the court said elections must be held with a faulty voter list." He said that on October 19, 2024, a month before the assembly elections, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) had written to the EC naming BJP workers allegedly interfering with voter rolls.

"Except the BJP, all major parties have raised concerns. We submitted the same proofs again today," he said, adding that the refusal to use VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) in Mumbai civic body polls and secrecy around CCTV footage raised further doubts.

Raj Thackeray said, "The EC refuses to show electoral rolls to even contesting candidates. Civic elections have been pending for over five years. Waiting for six more months to clean the voters' list will not destabilise democracy." "They had eight months to correct the rolls, and we were given just eight days. We asked them to cancel the notification and undertake a full rectification drive," the MNS chief said.

"We are not seeking cancellation of elections, but correction of voter lists. Democracy cannot run on manipulated rolls...Parties could not be expected to contest elections under such circumstances," he said.

Uddhav Thackeray said, "They say duplicates existed earlier too. That is exactly why we want a transparent system. If the government admits that there were irregularities even earlier, then corrective action is overdue." Jayant Patil said the lists were riddled with anomalies.

"Incomplete and misleading addresses on the EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Cards) and in the electoral rolls shared with political parties indicated a serious breach of due process," he said.

The voters' lists are highly compromised and faulty. In many cases, the given addresses were either wrong or the voters no longer lived there. We showed specific examples to the CEO and the SEC, he said.

In Murbad (Thane), 400 voters have just a dash instead of the mention of their address. In Badnera (Amravati), 450 voters have a zero before their address. In Kamptee (Nagpur), 867 names have no address at all. Such systematic errors point to manipulation, not clerical oversight, he said.

Multiple entries of the same voters were recorded, according to him.

"One Sushama Gupta appeared under six EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Cards) numbers in Nalasopara. After media coverage on August 12, all six entries vanished by 6 pm the same day. Who deleted them? Who verified the identities? No officer has answered," he said.

Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar alleged partisan involvement in electoral database handling.

"Devang Dave, who is linked to a political party, got the contract for voter addition and deletion. In Rajura (Chandrapur), we submitted proof of BJP workers tampering with lists. Yet, not a single FIR was filed," he alleged.

They alleged that the electoral database was being "operated by outside agencies", beyond the control of the State EC and the ECI.

Patil said transparency was compromised during the last assembly polls.

Thorat said Rahul Gandhi had previously raised similar concerns but the ECI "failed to act".

"Even college hostels were accepted as permanent residential addresses for EPIC cards. There is political interference in electoral processes. Citizens should reject such flawed elections," he said.

The Opposition parties said they would hold another round of meetings soon to decide further action if the SEC did not initiate a widespread rectification of the electoral database.

They said they would wait only a few days for an official response before announcing the next phase of their agitation.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, however, said the meetings between the Opposition and top election officials to question the alleged discrepancies in voters' lists were an attempt to create a narrative ahead of the local body polls, and termed the interactions a fiasco.

Speaking in Solapur, he said, "These meetings are to create a narrative before civic polls. Instead of accepting defeat and going among the people, the Opposition is attacking constitutional institutions." "These meetings ended in a fiasco as the opposition leaders didn't know which questions to ask and to whom. Duplicate voter names are not a new issue, they existed even when they were in power," he said.

Fadnavis maintained that the Mahayuti alliance would still win because "people are with us". PTI ND MR GK NSK NP