Aaditya Thackeray alleges 'vote theft' in Worli Assembly seat, BJP says do not become 'Maharashtra's Pappu'

We’ve found 19,333 voter anomalies in our post-election study; Election Commission allowed mass rigging in polls by simply not performing its duty to purify the voter lists, says Shiv Sena (UBT) leader

Mumbai: Taking ahead the 'vote theft' charge against the Election Commission and the BJP from Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray son’s Aaditya Thackeray flagged anomalies in the voters’ list from the Worli Assembly constituency that he has been representing for two terms. 

The BJP reacted sharply with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis saying that he should not try to become Maharashtra’s 'Pappu'.

“I know Aaditya...however, I didn't expect him to do 'Pappugiri'. His presentation yesterday was a replica of what (Congress MP) Rahul Gandhi had done earlier. He (Aaditya) shouldn't try to become Maharashtra's Pappu. All that the Opposition is doing is cover firing," Fadnavis said, adding: “The position of Aaditya is the replica of what Rahul Gandhi did….khoda pahad, nikla chuha”.

The charges of Aaditya, a former Minister, came ahead of the November 1 march-cum-rally in Mumbai by the Opposition parties, including the Congress, Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP), Shiv Sena (UBT), Raj Thackeray-led MNS, CPI, CPI(M), PWP, among others. 

Aaditya made the allegations on Monday and Tuesday, during which he claimed to have found 19,333 voter anomalies in the post-election study. 

Making a presentation, Aaditya said the Opposition parties had been saying constantly that elections in India have not been held in a free and fair way by the Election Commission of India.

“The Election Commission has allowed mass rigging in elections by simply not performing its duty to purify the voter lists. We exposed voter fraud in Worli, where we’ve found 19,333 voter anomalies in our post-election study.  If this were the case in my constituency, imagine the vote fraud done by those in the current government, across the State,” said Aaditya. 

The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader said he had urged party office-bearers to look into voter lists in detail, identify the anomalies and raise objections.

"The Election Commission, which has not conducted free and fair elections in India for the benefit of the BJP, has to be made to follow rules and ensure that democracy is revived,” he said. 

“The total number of voters increased from 2,52,970 in May (during the Lok Sabha elections) to 2,63,352 in October (in the Vidhan Sabha polls). Nearly 16,000 voters were added in the span of four months. During the same period, nearly 5,000 voters were deleted. But when we conducted a detailed analysis of the entire list, we found over 19,000 anomalies,” he said.

“During the Lok Sabha elections, the Maha Vikas Aghadi got a massive victory. However, the results in the subsequent Vidhan Sabha polls were the opposite and shocking for many. Some first thought the issue was with EVMs or VVPATs. But later it was realised that the real problem lies in the faulty voters list,” Aaditya said. 

The UBT Sena leader said the forthcoming local bodies elections in Maharashtra are going to be challenging. “Once the draft electoral rolls are published, we have to ensure that the voters' list is clean. If the rolls are corrected, genuine voters will elect genuine representatives,” he said.