Maharashtra opposition demands postponement of local body polls till voter list fixed

We will wait for a couple of days for a response from CEO and SEC and then will decide on the further course of action, Uddhav Thackeray said after attending the meeting

Mumbai: In a joint meeting with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) and the State Election Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, opposition leaders—including Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray, and NCP (SP) leader Jayant Patil—highlighted multiple anomalies in the voters’ list and demanded that local body elections in Maharashtra be postponed until the list is corrected.

Opposition leaders highlighted multiple anomalies in the voters’ list and demanded that local body elections in Maharashtra be postponed until the list is corrected. (Representative photo)

“We will not accept autocracy in the name of democracy. We firmly told them there should be no election without correction in the voters list. We will wait for a couple of days for a response from CEO and SEC and then will decide on the further course of action,” Uddhav Thackeray said after attending the meeting with CEO S Chockalingam and SEC Dinesh Waghmare on the second consecutive day.

Tuesday’s meeting, attended by Uddhav Thackeray, Raj Thackeray, Jayant Patil, Congress leaders Balasaheb Thorat and Vijay Wadettiwar, however, remained inconclusive. NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar had to leave for Pune for a scheduled programme.

In the meeting, all leaders questioned the process of including and deleting the names of voters and gave several examples from various parts of the state regarding anomalies in the voter list, such as duplication of the name of the same voter at several addresses, voters without an address, over 180 voters in the same home, and a voter aged 124 years shown as the son of a father aged above 60 years.

Opposition leaders told both CEO and SEC that they should not work for the ruling party. Uddhav Thackeray insisted on the use of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls or the use of ballot papers, etc.

MNS chief Raj Thackeray said that voters and political parties are the two main parts of the election process and the election commission only conducts the elections. He also expressed displeasure over anomalies in the voters list and questioned how complaints about the voter list have only started after 2014. He further demanded that the local body elections be postponed until corrections are made in the voter list.

The story will be updated once comments from the CEO and SEC are received.