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Journalism of Courage
The counting for the six Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra was abruptly stopped on Friday after both the BJP and the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) objected to votes cast by each other, alleging violation of code of conduct rules.
The BJP urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to declare the votes cast by Jitendra Awadh (NCP), Yashomati Thakur (Congress) and Suhas Kande (Shiv Sena) as invalid. The MVA, on the other hand, also moved the poll body seeking that the votes cast by BJP’s Sudhir Mungantiwar and Independent MLA Ravi Rana be declared invalid.
The BJP claimed that Awadh, Thakur and Kande had shown their ballot paper to party leaders instead of polling agents, which was against the poll procedure. It also pointed that these candidates had tried to hand over their ballot paper to their party leaders present at the venue, violating rules.
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Following this, the MVA made similar charges against Mungantiwar and Ravi Rana for allegedly displaying their ballot papers to non-polling agents.
Seven candidates are in the fray for six seats — Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut and Sanjay Pawar, NCP’s Praful Patel, Congress’ Imran Pratapgadi and BJP’s Piyush Goyal, Anil Bonde and Dhananjay Mahadik. The BJP, single largest party with 106 seats in the Assembly, had forced an election after it decided to field Mahadik from Kolhapur as its third candidate. A BJP leader said, “When Awadh, Thakur and Kande violated rules, we raised an alarm and brought it to the notice of the election observer… But Congress and Sena’s objections to Mungantiwar and Rana was an afterthought to settle political scores.”
However, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut, tweeted, “The BJP tried to intimidate members with ED threat. When they failed to do so and realised members voted for MVA, they are using this new tactic to get three members’ votes invalid.”
An officer said, “We have provided the video recording on the entire election process to the EC. After receiving its nod, counting will start.”
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