Sharad Pawar visits village which planned repoll using ballot papers
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Solapur/Maharashtra: Nationalist Congress Party (SP) head Sharad Pawar visited the Markadwadi village in Maharashtra's Solapur district, where villagers raised doubts about EVMs and announced plans to conduct a “repoll” using ballot papers. Pawar expressed his support to the people and said that they showed the country the right direction with the ballot-paper poll repoll plans, PTI reported.
However, police registered a case earlier this week against more than 200 persons from the village and nearby areas for allegedly trying to conduct a “re-election” using ballot papers in an unauthorised manner.
Pawar, accompanied by several NCP (SP) leaders, including Jayant Patil, met villagers.
Pawar told a gathering in the village, "I would like to thank the villagers because you have shown the right direction to the whole country. You (villagers) were the ones who thought of conducting polls using ballot papers."
"We have collected some data about EVMs. People cast their votes, but in the end, the results were unexpected. You raised awareness about the issue, and the process needs to change,” he said.
Pawar slammed the police action against villagers over the plans to conduct the "re-election" using ballot papers.
"How can the police restrict the gathering of villagers in their village? How can they even file police complaints against you (villagers)? Collect all such complaints and give them to me. I will take this up with the chief minister, state chief electoral officer, the prime minister, and even the Election Commission of India," he said.
A group of villagers had insisted on re-election with ballot papers while casting doubts on the votes counted through EVMs for a polling booth at Markadwadi in the November 20 state polls.
The village comes under the Malshiras assembly constituency, where NCP (SP) candidate Uttam Jankar defeated the BJP's Ram Satpute by 13,147 votes.
Though Jankar won the seat, Markadwadi residents claimed the quantum of votes polled by the NCP (SP) leader was lesser than Satpute, expressing doubt about the EVMs.
