Thackeray cousins, Pawar to lead Oppn march against 'irregularities' in voters' list on Nov 1

Mumbai, Oct 30 (PTI) Top leaders of Maha Vikas Aghadi, including Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, NCP (SP) head Sharad Pawar along with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray, will lead the Opposition's November 1 protest march in Mumbai against alleged irregularities in voters' lists.

The Thackeray cousins, warming up to each other after years of political estrangement, and Pawar held a meeting at the Y B Chavan here on Thursday to finalise the nitty-gritty of the grand joint rally, where senior Congress leader Naseem Khan, Peasants and Workers Party (PWP)'s Jayant Patil, and leaders of Left parties were also present.

State Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal, whose outfit is a key constituent of the Opposition MVA, noted his party completely supports the agitation, but remained non-committal on he himself taking part in the march, arguing "individual leaders are not important".

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Anil Parab said the protest march, coming ahead of local body polls in Maharashtra, will be taken out from the Fashion Street in south Mumbai to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters.

The protest march, covering a distance of around 1.5km, will be held between 1 pm and 4 pm and citizens will not be inconvenienced in anyway by the stir, the former state minister insisted.

The entire Opposition leadership in the state, including Sharad Pawar, Uddhav and Raj Thackery, will participate in the march. It will be held in a peaceful manner, and issues like "vote theft" and irregularities in voter lists will be highlighted, the Sena (UBT) MLC said.

The Raj Thackery-led MNS is not yet part of the MVA, which consists of the Congress, NCP (SP) and Shiv Sena (UBT).

The Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) has clarified there was no provision in laws or rules governing local body elections for the use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.

Referring to it, Parab said the Opposition was studying the SEC's statement.

State Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said the SEC's argument was not tenable because VVPAT testing was done in one ward of the Nanded Waghala City Municipal Corporation during its elections in 2017.

There is no basis for this argument, he said.

Notably, VVPAT is connected with an electronic voting machine through a printer port, which records vote data and counters in a paper slip to verify the correct recording of vote by EVM.

The Congress is completely in support of the joint protest rally as issues like "vote theft" and irregularities in voters' lists were highlighted by party MP Rahul Gandhi himself, Sawant maintained, but sidestepped a question on whether MPCC president Sapkal will participate.

Talking to reporters in his hometown Buldhana in eastern Maharashtra, Sapkal insisted the Congress will participate in the morcha and party leaders will attend it as per their availability in Mumbai that day.

"Individual leaders are not important. Whoever goes will represent the party. What is important is the demand for cleansing electoral rolls and updating them. The issue of (irregularities in voters' lists) was highlighted by the Congress first," he said but remained non-committal on his own participation.

Sapkal said the issue of MVA contesting local bodies polls together or separately or induction of new partners in the bloc is different from the vote theft issue.

"The Congress has authorized its local units to take a decision on whether to fight local polls in alliance or separately, and the party leadership will take a call on new partners if there is a proposal to join the alliance," he said.

Opposition parties have been demanding "rectification" of electoral rolls and removal of "anomalies" ahead of rural and urban body elections, which are to be completed by January 31, 2026. They have claimed that electoral rolls in the state contain around "one crore bogus voters".

Earlier this month, Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress, NCP (SP) and MNS leaders met the state Election Commissioner and Chief Electoral Officer, to point out "duplicate" names in the electoral rolls across different addresses and assembly segments.

The SEC has, however, maintained that no political party can tamper with the electoral rolls and those corrections and updates on the voter lists are being managed securely. PTI MR NP RSY