Opposition leaders, including Congress’ Rahul Gandhi, NCP (SP)’s Supriya Sule, and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut, on Friday doubled down on their charges of “wrongdoing” during last year’s Maharashtra elections and said that the opposition has found several anomalies in the voter list.
“We represent on this table the entire opposition that fought the last election in Maharashtra. We are going to bring some information about the election. We studied the details—the voters and the voting list. Our teams have been working, and we have found many irregularities,” said Rahul Gandhi.
Gandhi claimed that there was no change in the number of votes for Congress, NCP (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT)—who are part of the Maha Vikas Aghadi—between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.
The BJP got 1.19 lakh votes in the Lok Sabha polls and 1.75 lakh votes in the Vidhan Sabha polls, adding that most of the 35,000 new voters who were added in the state voted for the saffron party, Gandhi claimed.
Citing figures from the Union Health Ministry, he said that the voter list of Maharashtra in 2024 was larger than the entire adult population of the state.
He demanded that the poll panel make public the Maharashtra voter list of both the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
“We need the voter list of the Lok Sabha election and Vidhan Sabha election to understand exactly who these new additional voters are. We also want to understand how so many voters were deleted and why voters from one booth were transferred to another—most of them were SC/ST voters,” he charged.
He said the only reason the Election Commission has not responded to their request is that there was some wrongdoing in the election process.
In a post on X, Rahul said that the EC must answer the following questions: “Why did the EC add more voters in Maharashtra in five months than it did in five years? Why were there more registered voters in VS 2024 than the entire adult population of Maharashtra?”
He cited an example of the Kamthi constituency, where the BJP’s margin of victory is nearly equal to the number of new voters added.
Earlier, replying to the motion of thanks debate in the Lok Sabha, Rahul had raised doubts about the outcome of the Maharashtra elections.
“Almost 70 lakh new voters were added to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. That’s as much as the population of Himachal Pradesh. In a single building in Shirdi, over 7,000 voters were added. There is something problematic in all this,” said Gandhi.
In the Maharashtra elections held last year, the BJP-led Mahayuti stormed to power after winning 235 out of 288 seats. The BJP alone won 132 seats, decimating the Maha Vikas Aghadi of Congress, NCP (SP), and Shiv Sena (UBT).
’s Supriya Sule, and Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Sanjay Raut, on Friday doubled down on their charges of “wrongdoing” during last year’s Maharashtra elections and said that the opposition has found several anomalies in the voter list.){kind=link}