Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharasthra on Monday alleged that repeated voters (the same voter appearing in the voter list at different places) from Muslim community had benefited the Opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. On the other hand, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said he thanks the ruling party for confirming the Opposition’s allegations that there are anomalies in the voters’ list.
The BJP’s allegation came after the Opposition parties on Saturday carried out a rally in Mumbai accusing the ruling party of winning Assembly polls by rigging the electoral rolls.
At a press conference on Monday, Maharashtra cultural affairs minister and BJP leader Ashish Shelar presented examples of the repeated voters in 31 assembly constituencies and alleged that Opposition candidates had won because of the minority and Muslim voters.
Shelar alleged that the Opposition was questioning only Hindu and Dalit voters and shielding Muslim and minority voters as they are benefiting from them. Admitting that there are voters with multiple entries in the electoral rolls, Shelar said that still the ruling Mahayuti is ready to face the local body polls, respecting the Supreme Court orders of holding polls.
Shelar, in his presentation, said that the electoral rolls had eight types of anomalies in voters lists in Muslim dominated areas. “In Karjat Jamkhed constituency (represented by NCP-SP’s Rohit Pawar) voters like Imran Kadar Bagwan has two entries in the same list of voters in a booth, while Asma Sajid Jamadar and Navir Shahid Jamadar in Islampur constituency of Jayant Patil (NCP-sP) are registered on the same voter number.
He said in Sakoli (constituency of Congress’s Nana Patole), voters have been registered with different addresses. In some other Muslim-dominated constituencies, multiple photos of a single voter have been registered with different names, while one Ramazan Ali Aziz Khan, 65 years old, has been registered twice, once as male and once as female.
Raj and Uddhav Thackeray had appealed, in their rally on Saturday, that the duplicate voters should be beaten up for double voting. Shelar asked what should be done with the Muslim voters for their repeated entries on the rolls. Shelar said that though BJP believes in the justice for all and appeasement of none, the Thackerays and MVA is trying to divide society in the name of caste, religion, and language, he said.
Shelar also said that their scanning of 31 Assembly constituencies has found numerous duplicate voters, more than the winning margin of the opposition leaders.
“The MVA constituents did not take objection to the duplicate entries in Lok Sabha as they won more seats than us. The difference of votes polled by the two sides was just 2.03 lakh, against which there were 16.84 lakh duplicate Muslim voters across the state. Other examples are startling. Rohit Pawar won by 1,243 voters, and the duplicate voters in his constituency are 5,562, while Nana Patole won by 208 votes with the help of 477 duplicate Muslim voters. Jitendra Awhad won from Mumbra with the help of 30,601 duplicate muslim voters. The same is the case of Malshiras, Amit Deshmukh, Amin Patel from where opposition MLAs won with the help of duplicate entries of Muslim voters,” he said.
Shelar also claimed that the seats won by the MVA in Lok Sabha elections were with the help of duplicate voter entries.
Responding to Shelar, Thackeray congratulated him for confirming that there are anomalies in the voters’ list.
He said he and other Opposition leaders have demanded verification of voters from all constituencies.
“By taking a press conference on anomalies in voters list Ashish Shelar proved that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is in fact, the Pappu of Maharashtra. It might be the result of the internal politics of the BJP. I congratulate Ashish Shelar for it” said Thackeray, without mentioning Fadnavis’ statement calling Thackeray’s son and Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray as “Pappu” of Maharashtra after Aaditya made a presentation regarding anomalies in voters list.