Online registration of voters is scam, ECI lifeless puppet: Shiv Sena(UBT) in Saamana

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena(UBT) on Wednesday alleged that the online registration of voters is a scam, and the Election Commission of India (ECI) has become a “lifeless puppet working under the pressure of the BJP”.

The Thackeray camp, in a harshly worded editorial in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, claimed that names of the dead are increasing in the voter list and the names of the living are being excluded.

“A ‘software’ made in Gujarat is being used in Maharashtra for this purpose. The names of those who have migrated are already in the voter list, and 50-100 names are being registered in each house. It is the game of inserting bogus voters in the list that is happening at present. The BJP and Shinde camp bought the election machinery and played the same game in the Assembly elections, and they are going to repeat the same game in the upcoming elections to the Zilla Parishads and Municipal Corporations.

The editorial appears a day after opposition parties met the state Chief Electoral Officer and the State Election Commissioner, demanding free, fair and transparent elections to the local and civic bodies in Maharashtra.

According to the editorial, “the Election Commission of India or the State Election Commission are two sides of the same coin. The names of the bureaucrats in the electoral system as the guardians of democracy will definitely be recorded. Among the constitutional institutions that are working without any sense of direction, our Election Commission is at the top. They are watching the disrobing of democracy with their eyes closed”.

“A BJP minister, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, said yesterday that the grand alliance (Mahayuti) will definitely get 51 per cent votes in the local body elections in the state. The dates of the elections have not been announced yet. Their ‘alliance’ has not been announced. So, where exactly does this overwhelming confidence of getting 51 per cent votes come from? The Election Commission should look into this and act,” it said.

The editorial slammed the statement by the Shinde camp legislator from Paithan Vilas Bhumre, who said that he brought 20,000 voters from outside and got them to vote.

“Now, if the legislators won because of these mercenary voters brought from outside, the Election Commission should investigate whether these 20,000 voters were included in the voter list, or whether they took control of the voting machine and voted? But our Election Commission is appearing indifferent. Seshan evoked fear during his tenure as the CEC, but the incumbents have made a fool of themselves. Seshan took Mulayam Singh Yadav to task when he used a helicopter during the election campaign at that time. Now, even though a video of ministers and leaders unloading bags of money from a helicopter during the election has been released, the Election Commission is not ready to do anything,” alleged the editorial.

The Thackeray camp further claimed that 45 lakh votes were added during the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in Maharashtra, and the BJP got all these votes. “This miracle needed to be investigated,” it said.

“Now, there are lakhs of duplicate voters in the local body elections. They have been brought to different places in the voter list with slight changes in their names. The names are different, but the photo is the same. Since 2018, the Election Commission has been working to find such duplicate names and delete them. It is one of their jobs, but no work has been done in Maharashtra in this regard. Elections to 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra are being held through the ‘panel’ method. The only exception is Mumbai. There will be a one-on-one contest in Mumbai. There are strong efforts at all levels to corruptly swallow the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation elections. On what basis did the Maharashtra election officials reject the demand that the ‘EVM’ used in the Mumbai elections should have ‘VVPAT’?” it asked, while demanding that the BMC elections should be conducted on a ballot paper.

The Saamana editorial targeted the Centre, asking why it was not providing VVPATs in the BMC elections despite its claim of spending Rs 20,000 crore for the purchase of EVMs and VVPAT systems. The expenditure is also incurred in their maintenance. The party alleged that the Central government’s refusal to provide this facility in Mumbai means that their plan to take over the election system through a scam is very clear.

According to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, the Election Commission failed to take any action despite providing evidence that as many as 3,53,949 voters were duplicates, fake and migrated in three constituencies in Nashik city and four constituencies in Deolali, which is a rural part of the city. “The Election Commission should have done the work of transparently conducting everything from voter lists to elections, but now that work is currently being done by political party activists with great effort. This is a movement to eliminate corruption in the voter list so that everyone can fulfil their duty to exercise their right to vote as per the constitution to make the elections fair and transparent. However, if the Election Commission continues to ignore such warnings, a much bigger Mahabharata could happen in the future,” expressed the Thackeray camp in its mouthpiece.

IANS