Opp slams SEC for declaring civic polls without ‘clean-up’ of voters’ list: ‘Working under pressure from govt’

“The state election commission is working under the pressure of Maharashtra government. If the commission claims that it will be marking the probable duplicate voters, why can’t it delete them? It is the responsibility of the state election commission to hold free and fair elections. But the commission is running away from it without taking any responsibility,” said Maharashtra Congress chief Harshavardhan Sapkal. He announced that the Congress’ election committee will be meeting on November 12 and 13 to finalise candidates.

Elections to 246 Municipal Councils and 42 Nagar Panchayats will be held under the first phase on December 2, and the counting will be held on December 3. The elections of Zilla Parishad, Panchayat Samiti and Municipal Corporations are expected to be announced in the coming days.

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray said that he felt extremely angry after watching the press conference of the commission.

“I am now 100 per cent convinced that the election commission is a toy in the hands of ruling party. The commission could not even answer a single question of duplicate voters satisfactorily. You (commission ) have anyways dodged the responsibility. Now you are not even answerable. What’s the use of your posts?” said Thackeray.

Sena (UBT) MLC Anil Parab said that the election commission was simply enforcing the programme without giving any clarity.

“The commission has said that it will be marking the duplicate voters with two stars. But how will it stop the voter from voting twice? There is no clarity. It is simply enforcing its programme without considering the objections raised by us,” said Parab.

The commission, when asked about the number of duplicate voters, had said in its press conference that it does not have the exact number and it will be available only close to election.

“Unless we get the list of voters who are marked as probable duplicate voters, how can we stop it? We demand that the list should be made available to us in next two to three days,” said opposition Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Rohit Pawar.

Ruling NCP’s state unit chief Sunil Tatkare said that the local body polls are being held after a gap of many years. “I request the opposition to stop giving excuses and instead focus on the poll campaign,” he said.

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