Maharashtra: Why has Congress now opened a front against election rigging?

#News Bureau March 1,2025

The Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has announced to launch an agitation against the voter list manipulation, saying the Election Commission is deliberately ignoring the issue as the BJP has played this game in connivance with it to win the state assembly elections.

The Maharashtra Congress held a meeting on Friday, February 28, over allegations of voter list manipulation. Maharashtra Congress chief Harshvardhan Sapkal said, “Our leader Rahul Gandhi had raised this in the Lok Sabha. He had sought the final voter list compiled in electronic form. The Election Commission of India is scared and is adopting delaying tactics. So, we have decided to take this battle to the people’s court. We will launch a public relations campaign against the ‘fraud’ committed in the recently held assembly elections and bring the facts before the public.”

AICC member Gurdeep Sappal said, “When the party placed its demand in the Delhi High Court, the Election Commission asked for three more months. On one hand it claims that the election system is completely secure, while on the other hand it refuses to share information.”

Did Congress understand this signal: People of Markadwadi village in Solapur district did not accept the election results. The reason for this was that the candidate they voted for did not win. Surprisingly, the BJP candidate got the most votes there. That is why the people of Markadwadi organized a mock election there. The villagers arranged for voting with ballot papers at their own expense. The villagers have decided that voting with ballot papers will take place on December 3 from 7 am to 4 pm. Immediately after this, the votes will be counted and the results will be declared.

This village comes under Malshiras assembly constituency. There was a tough competition between Sharad Pawar’s NCP candidate Uttam Jankar and BJP candidate Ram Satpute. Uttam Jankar won the election. But Satpute got more votes in Markadwadi village. Satpute got 1003 votes, while Jankar got only 843 votes from the village. The villagers were angry about this. So they decided to conduct mock voting. But before the voting could take place, the district administration imposed Section 144 in Markadwadi. This was an indication that mock voting would not be allowed.

The Election Commission was very scared of this mock voting. Sources say that on its advice, mock voting was stopped by imposing Section 144 there. Later, an FIR was also registered against 200 people to teach the villagers a lesson. After this, it was announced to conduct mock polls in Tuljapur village of Balapur area of ​​Akola district and Beltala village of Patur tehsil.

It is being said that even though this voting could not take place, it has shown people a way of symbolic protest through mock polls in many places. Congress has caught this message and announced the movement.

Controversy over increase in vote percentage and voter turnout

There is a huge difference between the votes counted and the votes cast in Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024. There is still controversy over this. According to the Central Election Commission, the final voting in the assembly was 66.05% i.e. a total of 64,088,195 votes. However, the total votes counted is 64,592,508, which is 504,313 more than the total votes cast. Although in eight assembly constituencies the number of votes counted was less than the votes cast, in the remaining 280 constituencies, the votes counted were more than the votes cast.

The most surprising thing was that the assembly elections were held five months after the Lok Sabha elections 2024. In which the total number of voters in Maharashtra increased by 47 lakhs! Whereas, in five years from the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, there was an increase of only 37 lakh voters in Maharashtra. Whereas this time 47 lakh voters increased in five months.

Data analysis shows that the number of new voters was particularly high in some assembly constituencies. More than 18 lakh new voters were added in just 78 assembly seats, where BJP won 68 seats. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi raised this issue inside and outside Parliament. He said that seven thousand new voters were added in one building in Shirdi area alone.

It is not that only Congress raised the issue of election rigging. Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) filed a petition seeking details of 76 lakh votes cast after 6 pm in the Maharashtra election results. On the day of counting, polling agents lodged several complaints of having 99% battery. But no cognizance was taken of them.

Election Commission’s stubbornness
The Election Commission told the Delhi High Court on Tuesday, February 25, that it will decide in three months whether to give the voter list to Congress MP Randeep Surjewala or not. Surjewala has asked the Commission for the voter list of the elections held in Haryana and Maharashtra between 2009 and 2024. There were many complaints of irregularities in the voter lists of Haryana and Maharashtra during the elections. That is why the Congress MP asked for the voter list from the ECI.
But the ECI is procrastinating in this matter. That is, it does not want to give the voter list. Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing on behalf of the Congress, said, “It took two months to respond. In two months, they have said that now we need more time to respond.”