An estimated 35.05 per cent of voters exercised their franchise till 1:30 pm on Tuesday as voting was underway for elections in 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Maharashtra, officials said.
As reported by news agency PTI, polling was peaceful barring some places at Mahad in Raigad, Akot in Akola and Muktainagar in Jalgaon district, where there was tension among workers of different parties accusing each other of violating rules.
Following the reports of rule violations, the election officials further launched a probe after a video purportedly showed Shiv Sena MLA Santosh Bangar entering a polling booth while a woman was casting her vote during the local bodies election in Hingoli district.
The polling across various booths began at 7.30 am and will conclude at around 5.30 pm on Tuesday. As per the data from the State Election Commission, 35.05 per cent of the electors cast their votes till 1:30 pm, reports PTI.
The Maharashtra Congress on Tuesday further claimed that, “During the Maharashtra Local Body Elections, two suspected bogus voters were caught at a polling station in Buldhana barely an hour and a half after voting began for the municipal council elections there,” as cited by news agency PTI.
In another scenario, a man also allegedly attempted to cast a vote in the name of local resident Vaibhav Deshmukh at the Gandhi Primary School polling centre in ward no. 15 of Buldhana. The individual is said to be a resident of Kothali in Motala taluka, the Congress alleged in a statement.
As reported by news agency PTI, another person accompanying him was also detained, while Congress functionaries claimed that more individuals from Kothali and Ibrahimpur had been brought to Buldhana city with the intention of casting fraudulent votes.
The Opposition party alleged that Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad was bringing people from rural areas to cast “bogus” votes in the Buldhana Municipal Council elections.
Counting of votes will be taken up on December 21, as per the directive of the Bombay High Court`s Nagpur bench on Tuesday, after the SEC last week rescheduled elections in 24 local bodies to December 20 due to certain apparent irregularities in the process, reported PTI.
Highlighting the issues during the election, the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also criticised the postponement of the 24 local body polls and said the SEC had interpreted the law in the wrong way.
Voting was underway across 264 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in the first phase of the local body elections in Maharashtra, where 6,042 seats and 264 posts of council presidents are up for grabs.
(With inputs from PTI)
