New Delhi: Amid the growing political alignment between the Thackeray cousins, Raj and Uddhav are now speaking in one voice, saying local body polls should be delayed in Maharashtra if “discrepancies” in voter list are not corrected.
Maharashtra’s opposition alliance Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) and the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) Wednesday met state and central election commission officers here, and raised allegations of large-scale irregularities in the voter list. They were joined by other parties.
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MLA Jayant Patil, Congress’ Balasaheb Thorat and others joined them at the meeting. The leaders later addressed a joint press conference, and said the meeting was not conclusive.
The Thackeray brothers accused both the state election commission and the Election Commission of India of failing to maintain transparency and allowing manipulation of voter data.
“We will not accept autocracy in the name of democracy,” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader
Uddhav Thackeray told the press conference. “We firmly told them, there should be no election without correction in the voter list. We will wait for a couple of days for a response from CEO and SEC and then will decide on the further course of action.”
During the meeting, the leaders raised the issue of alleged voter data anomalies, questioned the process of including and deleting the names from voter list, and gave examples from various parts of the state.
Raj Thackeray alleged that the voter list was being tampered with in real time.
“Yesterday, we showed the Commission the name of a bogus voter at 6 pm. By 7 pm, the name was deleted from the list. When we asked the officials how it happened, they said they were unaware and would investigate. If the Election Commission doesn’t know who is adding or deleting names, then who should we ask?” he said.
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Opposition queries
Citing examples from some constituencies, Raj claimed that discrepancies include multiple entries of the same voter, fake addresses, and unrealistic ages.
“In the 2024 elections, in the Charkop constituency, there was a voter named Nandini listed as 124 years old, while her father was shown as 43,” Raj said. “If such things continue, it’s better not to hold elections until the list is corrected,” he added.
The leaders also demanded that the Commission withdraw its notification that gives just eight days for claims and objections. Said Raj, “We will wait for two to three days and decide our next move.”
Uddhav Thackeray also accused the Election Commission of “corrupt malpractice” and warned that democracy in Maharashtra was under threat.
Jayant Patil and Uddhav Thackeray also said that before the November 2024 Assembly elections too, the MVA had alleged that certain BJP members were “interfering with the electoral process”.
“This is a joke on democracy. We told the Election Commission—if you can’t hold fair elections, then don’t hold them at all. Or call it a selection instead of an election,” Uddhav said.
He also questioned the Commission’s refusal to use Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines during local body polls. “We already have doubts about EVMs, and now they won’t even use VVPATs. There are no updated voter lists, no camera footage, no transparency. Vote chori, party chori — everything is happening through backdoor entries,” Uddhav said.
The leaders said they presented documentary evidence and a detailed letter highlighting “serious flaws” in the voter list across constituencies.
For instance, in Murbad, 400 voters have only a ‘dash’ mentioned in place of house numbers; in Badnera, 450 voters have their house numbers listed as “0”; and in Kamthi, 867 voters have their address fields marked “null”, they said.
Similarly, 813 voters in the Nashik Central constituency and 869 in Pune Cantonment are all registered at a single address, they said.
“In Nalasopara, a woman named Sushma Gupta was listed six times with different EPIC (Electors Photo Identity Card) IDs. After news reports highlighted this, the entries vanished from the EC website by evening. This shows someone else is operating the EC server,” Jayant Patil alleged.
Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat added that despite repeated complaints, no corrective measures were taken.
“We had raised these issues even during the Assembly elections. No rectification was done in the last six months, and the same flawed list is being used again,” Thorat said. “The EC keeps passing the buck between state and central authorities. Nobody wants to take responsibility,” Thorat said.
The dates for local body polls in Maharashtra have not been announced. But the Supreme Court has set a deadline of January 31, 2026 for conducting all local body elections in the state.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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