Following the controversial Haryana assembly election, there is a growing outrage in Maharashtra against the 2024 Assembly election results, which gave the BJP (in coalition with Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and AjitPawar-led NCP) a “resounding” majority. The outrage goes beyond simple election denialism as a village in Maharashtra tried to hold mock poll but the administration foiled it by imposing curfew in the area. The hunger strike protest by 95-year-old Baba Adav gives new fillip to the allegations of EVMsmisuse, not to speak of the heavy use of money power that is talked of in Maharashtra.
No doubt, Maharashtra poses a unique challenge to the Election Commission, which is under fire from several quarters.
Shocked by the results, Maha Vikas Aghadi elected members even refused to take oath on the first day of special assembly session, alleging that ECI added over 76 lakh votes to the final tally of the polled votes that changed the outcome drastically. Congress, which had emerged as the single largest party in the May-June general election with 13 seats in the state, witnessed one of its worst performances in the Assembly polls, winning only 16 seats. Sharad Pawar’s NCP-SP got 10 seats while Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena-UBT won 20.
The Congress, which won 16 out of 101 contested seats, came a distant second with a 12.42% vote share with 8,020,921 votes polled.The Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena’s tally of 57 out of 81 contested seats saw a vote share of 12.38% and 7,996,930 votes.
Interestingly, the vote share of NCP-SP and the quantum of votes polled for the party surpassed the rival NCP faction despite the former’s rout in the elections.
The NCP-SP contested 86 seats but won only 10 with an 11.28% vote share and 7,287,797 votes.
In contrast, AjitPawar-led NCP registered a 9.01% vote share despite winning 41 of 59 contested seats and polling 5,816,566 votes.
The rival Shiv Sena-UBT, which won 20 seats, logged a vote share of 9.96% and polled 6,433,013 votes.
There is enough evidence to support the claim that people disapproved of the way Thackeray government was overthrown, with the MLAs hiding in BJP-ruled states of Gujarat and Assam. This was made worse by the removal of Thackeray-Sena symbol and the attempts to weaken Pawar’s considerable power.
Noted journalist Jagdish Rattanani said that “none of the above mentioned (reasons) would fetch the BJP any votes ordinarily, even accounting for its superior money power, much-touted campaign execution, or the RSS ground support. In fact, even those inclined the BJP way are hard put to explain away the BJP hammer used to knock off Thackeray and Pawar.”
The allegation of machine-led manipulation to deliver results at odds with the ground reality as happened in Haryana, now Maharashtra presents a textbook case. It is said the increased voter turnout appeared to allegedly favour the ruling BJP-led alliance.
In this backdrop, the Congress’ data analytics department did a diligent homework of Maharashtra assembly results. It took services of the world’s best forensic experts to unearth the rigging patterns. The expert team also analysed the assembly elections results of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana.
In this regard, data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra. He also sought booth-wise Form 20 data in excel sheet format (not in PDF format) for the two recent elections.
In his letter, Chakravarty said that “40 lakh new voters were enrolled, and 75 lakh extra votes were polled in the Vidhan Sabha election vis-a-vis Lok Sabha.This increase of 4.3% in voters enrolled and 13% in votes polled is unusually high compared to previous election cycles in Maharashtra or other states under similar election cycles.”
“We had also presented a list of 118 constituencies in Maharashtra where there were 25,000 or more extra votes cast versus Lok Sabha elections and the BJP alliance had won 102 in the Vidhan Sabha versus just 58 in the Lok Sabha election,” says the letter referring to the delegation’s meeting with ECI. “As agreed in that meeting, we await further data from the Commission,” says the Congress.
Earlier, a Congress delegation met with EC officials, expressing worries about suspected irregularities in the Maharashtra Assembly polls’ voting process, such as the high number of additions and deletions in the voters’ list. The delegation sought raw data from the poll panel.
The Congress sought an in-person hearing to provide pertinent information on November 29 after bringing up “serious and grave inconsistencies” with the EC that it claimed were being exposed in the data pertaining to the polling and counting procedures for Maharashtra elections.
AICC Maharashtra in-charge Ramesh Chennithala, Patole, and AICC general secretary Wasnik wrote in a memo to the EC that “these glaring inconsistencies” were not the result of any skewed intentions or unrealistic assumptions, but rather taken from the data that the EC made publicly available.
The memorandum said, “In fact, questions relating to Maharashtra’s voter data have also been raised by a former Chief Election Commissioner; hence we are bringing the same to the attention of this commission.”
“In the days leading up to the polling day, the Indian National Congress and its allies received several ground-level reports about different means being adopted by the ruling regime to commit large-scale electoral fraud across the assembly constituencies in Maharashtra,” the memorandum read.
The allegation of machine-led manipulation to deliver results at odds with the ground reality is so widespread in Maharashtra that the residents of Markadwadi hamlet in Malshiras taluka, Solapur district, attempted to hold a mock ballot voting exercise.
Ram Satpute, former MLA and BJP candidate, unexpectedly won 1,003 votes in the village compared to 843 for UttamJankar, the candidate of NCP-SP. In past elections – such as the assembly elections in 2009, 2014, and 2019 – and in Lok Sabha elections, Jankar has continuously gotten resounding support from Markdwadi.
In protest against the alleged rigging, social worker Baba Adavsat at Phule Wada, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule’s home in Pune. This signalled yet again that the agitation is a social-political one against the brazen use of muscle and money.
Echoing the sentiments of people, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole said: “More than us, the public of Maharashtra is shocked. This is because the public was against the Mahayuti and they had decided to replace the government in the state. BJP won the elections by deceit. It has conspired with the Election Commission to murder the spirit of democracy.”
He further said: “The rigging that has been done by the Election Commission is not good for our democracy. Congress will fight that battle. The ECI is stopping people from conducting mock polls. Some people were detained. Was that treason?”
Meanwhile, 104 candidates filed applications with the EC to verify the VVPAT and EVMs due to concerns about their accuracy.
Notably, with 12 applications submitted, Thane district had the most verification requests. Pune came in second with 11 requests. An inspection of 137 EVMs has been requested.