Hindustan Times photo.
Mumbai: Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (SS-UBT) legislator Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Election Commission of India (ECI), questioning whether it is "running a circus" after "massive irregularities" were found in Mumbai's draft voter list, released on November 20, IANS reported.
Speaking to reporters, Thackeray highlighted numerous "discrepancies" in the voter rolls across Mumbai's 227 wards, stating that his party has filed 3,000 to 4,000 objections.
Thackeray pointed out that party legislator Sunil Govind Shinde's name appears seven times in the voter list with different ages and photographs.
Similarly, former mayor Shraddha Jadhav's name appears eight times, while the names of Congress legislator Jyoti Gaikwad and party MP Anil Desai also appear as duplicate entries.
"The Election Commission has shown 14 lakh duplicate voters that will be removed. Our legislator's name was listed seven times with different ages and photos. Is the Election Commission making a mockery of this? Are you running a circus?" he questioned.
He said that 5.86 lakh people are registered as duplicate voters, with many Marathi voters' names appearing multiple times.
He alleged that some duplicate entries are not marked with a star symbol for identification. He raised concerns about the names of deceased voters remaining on the list despite the submission of death certificates, questioning whether proxy voting is occurring in their names.
"In many cases, the names marked by EC as repeated aren't repeated and in fact are common Marathi names, with real different people. Whereas, there are approximately 50,000 names that are repeated, but not marked by the EC as repeated. Voters who have been long dead have been present through voter lists in Vidhan Sabha polls, and some have even voted. In every ward, for every booth, we have made a list of such voters, with proof. What will the EC do with this entire list? Will they allow proxy voting? Most Shocking," said Thackeray.