The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on Thursday met the Election Commission to raise concerns over alleged voter list irregularities and the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, with Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA, Aaditya Thackeray claiming that voters are being removed across the country and demanding a transparent verification exercise.
Addressing the media after the meeting, Thackeray said the discussion with the Election Commission was positive and that the opposition alliance had submitted 38 points highlighting its concerns over the voter verification process.
“We had some serious questions regarding the SIR process, which is why we met the Election Commission. The discussion was positive, and we have placed our concerns before them. For now, we are satisfied,” Thackeray said.
He stressed that voter verification exercises should be conducted in a fair and systematic manner, regardless of whether elections are approaching. He also said the media has a crucial role to play in ensuring accountability in the electoral process.
Thackeray alleged that his party had previously raised concerns about duplicate voter entries ahead of elections, but no concrete action had been taken so far. He claimed that with modern technology, identifying duplicate or suspicious entries should not be difficult.
“We are fully prepared to cooperate in cleaning up the voter list. Even before civic elections, our party workers identified bogus voters at the local level. In some cases, we found multiple entries with similar names, altered photographs, and duplicate records,” he said.
Questioning the credibility of the Election Commission, Thackeray said public trust in the institution was not absolute and alleged irregularities in ward-level voter mapping.
“Several buildings have allegedly been shifted from one ward to another despite delimitation rules. More than half of the suspected duplicate voters identified by us were Marathi-speaking voters,” he claimed.
Thackeray attack on the BJP, alleging that the ruling party was engaging in divisive politics instead of addressing pressing public issues.
Referring to reports of ‘Operation Tiger’, he claimed the BJP was focusing on engineering defections rather than governance.
On the ongoing demolition drive at Garib Nagar near Bandra, Thackeray said he would comment only after obtaining detailed information about the matter.
He also criticised the government over the handling of the NEET controversy, saying thousands of students were suffering due to administrative failures.
“The government is not taking the issue seriously. The accused should be hanged on the road those because future of thousands of students is at stake,” he said.
Calling for strict action in cases of wrongdoing, Thackeray added that those found guilty in major controversies should face the strongest punishment.
