Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray flagged alleged irregularities in the electoral process during a joint press conference on Wednesday.
During the press conference, Raj Thackeray launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI), accusing it of failing in its duty by not sharing accurate and complete voter lists with political parties. He alleged serious discrepancies in the 2024 voter roll, calling it “corrupt” and riddled with anomalies.
The MNS chief said, “The Election Commission’s job is to conduct free and fair elections – not to hide voter data from political parties. If the Commission isn’t even sharing the list, then the first scam is right there.”
Thackeray claimed to have reviewed the 2024 voter list and pointed to bizarre age inconsistencies, stating: “How can a father be younger than his son? There are entries where a person is 107 and his son is 102. Who is whose father here? It’s a joke. The entire list is corrupted.”
Demanding immediate rectification, the MNS chief said, “Don’t hold elections until the voter list is corrected. We raised this issue in today’s meeting too.”
Joining him in raising concerns, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray said all major political parties in Maharashtra have united to address the issue. “We had raised this objection a month ago, before the Vidhan Sabha elections. The voter list had several errors – wrong names, incorrect ages, and duplicate entries,” he said.
Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction) leader Jayant Patil also weighed in, stating, “There are duplicate voters in several constituencies. We’ve submitted strong evidence of these irregularities to the Election Commission.”
Senior Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat during the press conference said, “The Maharashtra voters` list has numerous irregularities. The Election Commission should also respond to allegations made by Rahul Gandhi.”
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance – comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SP), and Congress – has collectively demanded that elections be postponed until the voter lists are cleaned and made transparent.
On Tuesday, a delegation of Maharashtra’s opposition parties met Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) S. Chokalingam at Mantralaya to raise serious concerns over alleged irregularities in the state’s voter lists.