Will take legal action against EC once in power: Uddhav Thackeray

Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray on Monday asserted that his party would take legal action against the Election Commission once his alliance comes to power in the Centre. 

“The party leaders should file the case against the EC and as the INDIA bloc comes power action will be taken,” he said. 

Addressing the Shiv Sena (UBT) office bearers from across the Maharashtra presented at the “Nirdhar Melava” rally in Mumbai’s Worli, Mr. Uddhav warned the EC to correct errors in the voters’ lists, saying if it fails to do so, the Opposition will decide whether to oppose holding the local body elections or not. 

The slew of allegations against the EC has surfaced in Maharashtra ahead of the upcoming local body elections. Several political parties accused the EC of “irregularities in voter lists” and “inaction against ruling party leaders for violations”.  

After meeting EC along with his allies of Maha Vikas Aghadi, for the first time Shiv Sena (UBT) held a meeting with its office bearers to explain the alleged vote theft and irregularities in voters’ list. 

Mr. Uddhav gave freehand to his party worker to “thrash” someone if they detect bogus voters.

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Monday, made accusations of vote theft during the “Nirdhar Melava” rally, where he presented the statistics claiming that there is a big mess in the voter lists. 

Mr. Aaditya instructed office bearers to be vigilant If this alleged mess is to be stopped. “The names in the voter list that you have should be read. Do we know these voters? We should see. We are waiting for the elections to come. But Vote theft means election theft. It was thought that the Maha Vikas Aghadi government would come after the Lok Sabha. But they stole the vote,” he suggested. 

Aditya Thackeray cited example of his constituency Worli and said, “There were 2,52,970 voters in the Worli constituency during the Lok Sabha elections. Those voters increased to 2,63,352 in the assembly elections. That is, an increase of 16,043 votes in a few months. There are anomalies in over 19000 electoral rolls.  Atleast 502 voters in Worli whose names are almost the same. The father’s name of voter Girish Gajanan Mhatre is Bhanji Patel. The gender of female voter Gauri Gagan Gupta and Tejashree Hadkar has been shown as male.” 

“There are 67 voters whose home address is only written as Zo Zo Zo. In one place, 38 voters live in one room. This is limited to Worli constituency only. There are lakhs of such voters in Mumbai. Some voting cards do not have the photo of the voter,” he said. 

“Modi and Shah are traders eyeing Mumbai”

During the rally, Mr. Uddhav also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, calling them “traders” eyeing for Mumbai, while labelled (indirectly) Mr. Shah “anaconda”, who wants to swallow Mumbai. 

Mr. Uddhav was referring to the BJP office Bhumipujan by Amit Shah that happened on Monday. 

Slamming Maharashtra Chief Minister for calling opposition supporters “urban naxals”, Mr. Uddhav said, “Mr. Fadnavis is a terrorist taking bribes from contractors in the name of development.”