Studying voters’ list, don’t have expectations from the EC: Sharad Pawar

NCP (SP) national spokesperson and MLA Jitendra Awhad said the party will be organising a peoples' movement in the state against the vote chori (vote theft).

The party said that it will soon be presenting a detailed study of all Assembly seats and approaching the courts as well. (Image: @PawarSpeaks)

By: Express News Service

3 min readAug 22, 2025 07:48 PM IST First published on: Aug 22, 2025 at 07:48 PM IST

Joining Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi‘s allegations of ‘vote chori,’ opposition Nationalist Congress Party (SP) chief Sharad Pawar on Friday said his party has begun a similar study in Assembly seats and identical incidents of duplicate and fake voters and wrong addresses have been found in many Assembly seats. The party said that it will soon be presenting a detailed study of all Assembly seats and approaching the courts as well.

“The party has begun the study of voters’ list in the state. We are not questioning the government. It is about Election Commission. Last week, 300 MPs hit the street against the Election Commission, Rahul Gandhi’s yatra in Bihar is getting huge response…the Election Commission is not taking a clear stand on the issue that is being raised today. But it is being raised from Bihar and the whole nation is looking at it.,” Pawar said.

When asked whether his party will be submitting documents and evidences to the commission, Pawar said, “We are collecting more and then we will submit it. We have no big expectations from the commission. Because of the kind of reaction it has given after the issue was raised by Rahul Gandhi, we do not think we will get a different response.”

“In the five years since Lok Sabha polls 2019 to 2024, the number of voters increased by 49,837 and from Lok Sabha 2024 to Assembly 2024, the number of voters increased by 32,319 in Shirur Assembly seat. We have till now identified 27,000 voters with identical names on different polling booths, wrong addresses and unrecognisable photos,” said Ashok Pawar, former Shirur MLA who was defeated by Mauli Katke of NCP in Assembly polls last year.

Also Read | MP LoP Umang Singhar says ‘vote chori’ in 27 Assembly seats, BJP hits back

Prashant Jagtap, who lost the election against Chetan Tupe of the NCP from Hadpsar seat, said, that 40,300 new voters were added within five months between Lok Sabha 2024 to Assembly 2024. “As per our study till now, we have identified 49,000 votes which are fake. We have complained to the Election Commission seeking details of Form 17A which we are being denied,” said Jagtap. Form 17A is used as a register to prevent fraudulent voting by ensuring that each voter has cast vote only once. Jagtap said he has also approached the Bombay High Court on specific inclusion and deletion of voters from his constituencies.

NCP (SP) national spokesperson and MLA Jitendra Awhad said the party will be organising a peoples’ movement in the state against the vote chori (vote theft).

Real vote chori is done by Cong: Fadnavis

Earlier in the day, speaking to reporters, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had claimed that relatives of former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan have been found voting multiple times. “Rahul Gandhi should reply to this. The real vote chori is being done by the Congress,” said Fadnavis.

Replying to this, former NCP state president Jayant Patil thanked Fadnavis for accepting problems in voters’ list. “It is good that even Fadnavis has now accepted that there are problems in voters’ list. It is high time that he too joins us to demand verification of existing voters’ list,” said Patil.

# NCP chief Sharad Pawar