Mumbai: In a scathing attack on the Election Commission Monday afternoon, Uddhav Thackeray claimed that the commission had conspired with the Bharatiya Janata Party to manipulate electoral lists in order to perpetrate voting fraud in the Maharashtra Assembly and Karnataka Lok Sabha elections held last year.
Additionally, he criticized the survey panel for undermining the Supreme Court’s authority.
“This issue needs to be brought up throughout the state. Where did the thousands of votes originate from? We must verify whether additional voters were added to each of our residential addresses.
He was alluding to assertions made by the Maha Vikas Aghadi, the opposition alliance of Maharashtra, which also consists of the Congress and Sharad Pawar’s NCP, that between the May federal election and the November Assembly election, an astounding one crore additional voters were added.
In May, the MVA easily won, but in November, they suffered a significant setback.
Mr. Thackeray also restated Sharad Pawar’s claim that two people had approached him regarding election tampering and offered him a “guarantee” of 160 of 288 Assembly seats.
After opposition politicians, including Sanjay Raut of his party, were temporarily arrested by Delhi Police during a protest march over the claims of voting fraud and, more especially, the re-verification of voter lists prior to the Bihar election, the former Maharashtra Chief Minister made these remarks.
At least two Trinamool MPs, including Mahua Moitra, fainted in the sweltering Delhi monsoon, while Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were also arrested in the altercation.
Mr. Thackeray termed the incarceration a “blot on democracy” and criticized the police for claiming that the protesting MPs lacked the required permits. Additionally, he accused the administration of deceiving his colleagues, saying that they were escorted to the police station after being informed they were being transported to the office of the Election Commission.
Additionally, he cited Rahul Gandhi’s PowerPoint presentations from last week, in which he provided data that cast doubt on more than one lakh votes in a portion of the Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha seat that the BJP claimed by less than 33,000 votes, despite his party’s prediction of winning.
Rahul Gandhi presented evidence of vote-stealing, but the EC insisted on a signed ‘affidavit’ rather than taking any action. Do they have more authority than the Supreme Court? The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader swore, “To say ‘we are not bound…’ is an insult to the highest court.”
Mr. Thackeray also criticized the EC for the special intense revision, or SIR, of the Bihar voter list, which was controversial due to its timing and claims that it singles out voters from marginalized communities who typically support the opposition parties.
Regarding the hacking of electronic voting machines, or EVMs—a topic the opposition, especially the Congress, regularly brings up in reaction to election losses—Mr. Thackeray stated that a BJP senior (whom he did not identify) demonstrated to him how the devices might actually be compromised.
