Voter list anomalies: MVA leaders show how to make bogus Aadhaar in Trump’s name for ₹20

Leaders from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) continued to reveal more instances of irregularities in the voters’ list.

Mumbai: Can US President Donald Trump vote in Maharashtra? Opposition leaders claim it’s possible, with the help of a fake Aadhaar card that can be created for as little as ₹20.

Voter list anomalies: MVA leaders show how to make bogus Aadhaar in Trump’s name for ₹20

A day after an Opposition delegation met election authorities to seek action against alleged anomalies in the electoral rolls, leaders from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) continued to reveal more instances of irregularities in the voters’ list, raising serious doubts about the integrity of the state election commission.

At a press conference on Thursday, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MLA Rohit Pawar alleged that bogus Aadhaar cards are being created to incorporate fake names in the electoral list. To support his claim, he showed an Aadhaar card with the name Donald Tatya Trump and a photo of the US president wearing a pheta (traditional Maharashtrian turban). The date of birth on the Aadhaar card was 01/01/1825, and the gender, female.

Pawar said his team of experts had found a website with the help of which they made a fake Aadhaar card in Trump’s name by paying only ₹20. The Aadhaar was generated on a bogus address in Pawar’s Karjat-Jamkhed assembly constituency. “This is how bogus identities are created. Based on them, electoral rolls are being revised as per their own convenience,” he claimed.

The NCP (SP) leader then alleged that, despite being an autonomous body, the state election commission has given the responsibility of managing its website to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office bearer, Devang Dave. “The election commission website has all the information. We are of the firm opinion that Dave took the MLAs of that constituency into confidence to decide whose name to include in the list and whose name to be excluded,” he claimed. Earlier this week, Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar had made the same allegation.

In response, Dave suggested Pawar work for the people to win their hearts instead of making what he called baseless allegations. “It appears that the MVA coalition has undertaken an initiative to spread misinformation, as they cannot show what they have done for the people. You continue to make allegations, and we will show the people how to bring development,” Dave said in a video statement.

‘Sudden spike’ in voters

Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant alleged that 655,709 votes were added to the electoral rolls in just four days between October 16 and October 19 last year. He presented data shared by the state election commission during this period to support his claim.

According to the data, there were 92,943,890 registered voters in Maharashtra up to the Lok Sabha elections in April-May 2024. By August 30, 2024, ahead of the state assembly elections, the number of voters increased to 95,374,302, which means 2.4 million new voters were added during this period, Sawant said. The day the assembly elections were announced on October 15, 2024, the number of registered voters stood at 96,369,410, he added.

According to the election commission’s procedure, new voters can register up to 10 days before the first day of filing nomination papers. Applications are then scrutinised in eight days, and the final supplementary voter list is published on the first day of nomination filing.

“In this case, October 29 was the first day for filing nominations, which means voter registration continued until October 19. This registration was open from October 16-19, and the final supplementary voter list was published on October 30, 2024. The new total stood at 97,025,119 voters, meaning that over 6.55 lakh (655,000) voters were added in just four days, which is a highly suspicious figure,” said Sawant, adding that the sudden spike is questionable, especially since the voter registration process had been ongoing throughout 2024, since before the Lok Sabha elections.

It wasn’t just the MVA leaders who pointed out anomalies in the electoral list. Even Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad from the ruling Mahayuti alliance did so on Thursday, before demanding the removal of “dual voters” and dead ones from the electoral rolls.

“Every voter should be linked with Aadhaar and the death certificate so that the name of the deceased can be deleted from the list immediately after their death,” Gaikwad said, adding that the names of some voters who died 30 years ago were still appearing in the list. The number of such voters is around 100,000 in his constituency, he said.