Mumbai: The Opposition parties, including the Shiv Sena, are gearing up for a protracted fight with the BJPon the issue of the electronic voting machine (EVM) following large-scale complaints of names missing from voters’ list and large winning margins of BJP candidates in several wards across the city.
Nearly 11 lakh voters could not vote on February 19 as they found their names deleted from the voting list.
On Monday, NCP president Sharad Pawar reportedly said that the BJP won the civic and zilla parishads through “non-transparent” means. The NCP’s performance in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, the party’s bastions, was dismal, while the BJP bagged the civic bodies. The non-BJP parties on Tuesday took out a morcha in Mulund to protest the surprises which the EVM hurled at them during the recently held BMC polls. The BJP swept the civic election in the suburban ward. A similar morcha was toaken out in Pune by NCP.
Sunil Gangwani, a local Congress functionary, said the non-BJP parties had “misgivings” about the EVMs during the civic election. “We want a thorough inquiry into cases of missing votes in Mulund and the amazingly large share of votes polled by the BJP. All political parties, minus the BJP, have decided to take a concerted action on the EVM issue,” he added. Stressing that BJP owed an explanation to the voters as it is in power and has the entire poll apparatus under its control, Gangwani said the Mumbai Congress may file a PIL in high court after scrutinising facts. Sena’s Yashodhar Phanse, outgoing chairman of the municipal standing committee, on Tuesday demanded a probe into the large-scale missing of names from voters’ list. Matoshree is particularly irked with the BJP on the EVM issue as the Sena lost a large chunk of municipal wards in western suburbs—from Dahisar to Goregaon.
Paresh Dhanak, Sena candidate who lost to BJP’s Pravin Shah in ward No. 15 with a huge margin, said, “The BJP candidate won by a margin more than 15,000 votes. Such a huge margin is unheard of in a civic election. Moreover, Sena voters are entirely missing from my tally.” The Sena is planning to move the court on the ‘missing’ names row