Mumbai: After the Congress, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena has alleged tampering of the voters’ list ahead of the forthcoming Vidhan Sabha polls in Maharashtra. While the Congress raised objection over deletion of names from the electoral rolls, the Shiv Sena (UBT) on Monday claimed there were attempts to include bogus names in the voters' lists across 150 assembly constituencies which the BJP was planning to contest.
“There are some 150 assembly constituencies that the BJP is planning to contest in this election. The BJP has scrutinised the voting patterns in the past and identified some 10,000 voters’ names for deletion. The party is replacing those names with bogus ones,” said an editorial in ‘Saamana,’ the mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena (UBT).
“The BJP workers are using Aadhaar card numbers of people who reside in Madhya Pradesh or Chhattisgarh to include their names in Maharashtra. However, the administration has foiled an attempt to insert such 6,853 ‘bogus’ names in the voters’ list in Rajura assembly segment of Chandrapur district,” the editorial said.
The Sena UBT alleged that the saffron party has resorted to such ‘tampering’ as it fears a defeat in the state polls. “The BJP does not have the courage for a fair contest with the Shiv Sena (UBT), hence it has conspired to win the election through such means,” it said.
The Shiv Sena (UBT) is a constituent of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) along with the Congress and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP).
Earlier, the Congress too had alleged that the BJP and the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena have conspired to remove the names of MVA voters from the voters’ list. Senior Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar, who is the leader of opposition in the Vidhan Sabha, said, “The BJP and the Shinde Sena are systematically working to remove at least 10,000 votes in constituencies, where the MVA had won in the Lok Sabha polls. The MVA voters’ names are being removed from the voters' list through online form 7. The election commission should stop accepting these forms,” he said.
