Sharad Pawar alleges ‘vote chori’ in Shirur, Hadapsar Assembly seats

Mumbai: Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Friday joined the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s charges of “vote chori”, saying that the party has begun a similar study in Assembly seats in Maharashtra, and identical incidents of duplicate and fake voters, wrong addresses have been discovered in many constituencies.

The party said that it will soon be presenting a detailed study of all Assembly seats and approaching the courts as well.

Pawar was accompanied by party nominees Ashok Pawar and Prashant Jagtap, who lost from Shirur and Hadapsar Assembly seats in the 2024 elections.

“The party has begun the study of the voters’ list in the state. We are not questioning the government. It is about the Election Commission. Last week, 300 MPs hit the streets against the Election Commission. Rahul Gandhi’s yatra in Bihar is getting a huge response…the Election Commission is not taking a clear stand on the issue that is being raised today. But it is being raised from Bihar, and the whole nation is looking at it,” Pawar said.

When asked whether his party will be submitting documents and evidence to the commission, Pawar said, “We are collecting more, and then we will submit it. We have no big expectations from the commission. Because, the kind of reaction it has given after the issue raised by Rahul Gandhi, we do not think we will get a different response.”

“In the five years from 2019 to 2024 Lok Sabha, the voter number increased by 49,837 and from 2024 Lok Sabha to the Assembly polls in the same year, the voter number increased by 32,319 in Shirur Assembly seat. We have till now identified 27,000 voters with identical names on different polling booths, wrong addresses, unrecognisable photos,” said Ashok Pawar, former Shirur MLA who was defeated by Mauli Katke of NCP in the 2024 Assembly polls.

Prashant Jagtap, who lost the election against Chetan Tupe of the NCP from the Hadpsar seat, said that 40,300 new voters were added within five months between the 2024 Lok Sabha to Assembly polls in the same year. “As per our study till now, we have identified 49,000 votes which are fake. We have complained to the Election Commission of India seeking details of Form 17 A, but we are being denied,” said Jagtap.

Form 17 A is used as a register to prevent fraudulent voting by ensuring that each voter has cast a vote only once. Jagtap said that he has also approached the Bombay High Court on the specific inclusion and deletion of voters from his constituency.

NCP (SP) national spokesperson and MLA Jitendra Awhad said that the party will be organising a people’s movement in the state against the “vote-chori” (vote-theft).

Earlier, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had claimed that relatives of Congress leader and former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan have been found voting multiple times. “Rahul Gandhi should reply to this. The real ‘vote chori’ is being done by the Congress,” said the CM.

Replying to this, former NCP (SP) state president Jayant Patil thanked Fadnavis for accepting the problems in the voters’ list. “It is good that even Fadnavis has now accepted that there are problems in the voters’ list. It is high time that he, too, joins us to demand verification of the existing voters’ list,” he added.

IANS