<p>Mumbai: Hours after the election schedule for polls to 288 nagar parishads (municipal councils) and nagar panchayats (town panchayats) were announced, the opposition parties fired a barrage of questions and accused the election machinery of working under the pressure of the government. </p><p>Last month, delegations of opposition parties have met Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Chockalingam and State Election Commissioner (SEC) Dinesh Waghmare, separately and collectively, to highlight discrepancies in voters’ list.</p><p>Last week, the Maha Vikas Aghadi opposition comprising Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) besides the Raj Thackeray-led MNS held a morcha-cum-rally and asked the Central Election Commission (CEC) and SEC to hold polls only after cleaning the electoral rolls. </p><p>As soon as the SEC announced the poll schedule, Raj slammed him saying that the EC is a puppet in the hands of the government. </p><p>“Now I am 100% convinced that the Election Commission, being an autonomous body, exists only in the Constitution... It's nothing but a puppet in the hands of those in power... From duplicate voter registrations to the numerous irregularities in the voter lists, if the Election Commission can't answer even a single question about all this, or doesn't even want to, then what's the point of you? You've already shrugged off your responsibility long ago, and now you're going to deny accountability too? So what are your positions even for?,” said Raj and posted a clip of the SEC facing questions on irregularities in voters list. </p>.'Lock them up inside homes on polling day': Lalan Singh's remark against Opposition leaders stokes row; FIR lodged, minister gets EC notice.<p>NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar too slammed the SEC. “When the SEC was asked about duplicate voters, the SEC stated that - “I will not comment on duplicate voters in the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly?” If the Election Commissioners themselves are not going to comment, then will the then Additional Election Officer Kiran Kulkarni at least comment on the duplicate voters in the Legislative Assembly? Even if the Commissioners have refused to comment, they at least acknowledged the issue of duplicate voters that we had been raising for so many days, including providing supplies; thank you for that!,” he said. </p><p>“Despite the massive discrepancies in voter lists, it is not appropriate to announce elections for local self-government institutions without correcting them. The Election Commission is saying that it will put a "star" in front of the names of duplicate and triplicate voters , but why doesn't it remove those names from the list and make the voter list clean,” Maharashtra Congress chief Harshavarshan Sapkal said. </p>
<p>Mumbai: Hours after the election schedule for polls to 288 nagar parishads (municipal councils) and nagar panchayats (town panchayats) were announced, the opposition parties fired a barrage of questions and accused the election machinery of working under the pressure of the government. </p><p>Last month, delegations of opposition parties have met Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S Chockalingam and State Election Commissioner (SEC) Dinesh Waghmare, separately and collectively, to highlight discrepancies in voters’ list.</p><p>Last week, the Maha Vikas Aghadi opposition comprising Congress, Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) and Sharad Pawar-led NCP (SP) besides the Raj Thackeray-led MNS held a morcha-cum-rally and asked the Central Election Commission (CEC) and SEC to hold polls only after cleaning the electoral rolls. </p><p>As soon as the SEC announced the poll schedule, Raj slammed him saying that the EC is a puppet in the hands of the government. </p><p>“Now I am 100% convinced that the Election Commission, being an autonomous body, exists only in the Constitution... It's nothing but a puppet in the hands of those in power... From duplicate voter registrations to the numerous irregularities in the voter lists, if the Election Commission can't answer even a single question about all this, or doesn't even want to, then what's the point of you? You've already shrugged off your responsibility long ago, and now you're going to deny accountability too? So what are your positions even for?,” said Raj and posted a clip of the SEC facing questions on irregularities in voters list. </p>.'Lock them up inside homes on polling day': Lalan Singh's remark against Opposition leaders stokes row; FIR lodged, minister gets EC notice.<p>NCP (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar too slammed the SEC. “When the SEC was asked about duplicate voters, the SEC stated that - “I will not comment on duplicate voters in the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly?” If the Election Commissioners themselves are not going to comment, then will the then Additional Election Officer Kiran Kulkarni at least comment on the duplicate voters in the Legislative Assembly? Even if the Commissioners have refused to comment, they at least acknowledged the issue of duplicate voters that we had been raising for so many days, including providing supplies; thank you for that!,” he said. </p><p>“Despite the massive discrepancies in voter lists, it is not appropriate to announce elections for local self-government institutions without correcting them. The Election Commission is saying that it will put a "star" in front of the names of duplicate and triplicate voters , but why doesn't it remove those names from the list and make the voter list clean,” Maharashtra Congress chief Harshavarshan Sapkal said. </p>