Citing Supreme Court judgment of 2017, Congress's Kasba Peth candidate Ravindra Dhangekar on Wednesday sought action against Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and BJP candidate Hemant Rasane for using religion to seek votes during the recently held bypoll. In a communication to Election Commission of India (ECI), Dhangekar said, “We want to bring to the notice of ECI a serious fact of luring and influencing voters under name of religion by Deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis during campaign for Kasba byelection and it has violated the model code of conduct.” On February 23, while addressing election meeting in Kasba assembly constituency for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Rasane, the deputy CM said the voters should vote for Hindutva and that Kasba constituency is “Hindutvawadi”, Dhangekar said. Dhangekar said Fadnavis also spoke about the Puneshwar temple in the constituency and asked if the Congress candidate will speak about the temple if he wins. During his speech, Fadnavis had said that Dhangekar, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) should clarify their stand on Punyeshwar temple, which was allegedly demolished during the Mughal era. Dhangekar said the deputy chief minister, by making the statement, deliberately made efforts to create a rift between the two communities by bringing in religion while appealing for votes for Rasane. He said the top court, in 2017, had given a judgment that if any candidate or his representative or supporter uses religion or caste to seek votes, the election of the candidate will be null and void.
