Alleging an electoral fraud, Maharashtra BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule has claimed a “big conspiracy” in the state’s electoral procedures, urging action against officials implicated in vote manipulation ahead of the Assembly elections.

Chandrashekhar Bawankule, BJP president in Maharashtra, said that at least 3000 voters were registered for two Assembly constituencies, who, according to him, belonged to one particular community.

“In Dhule and Malegaon Assembly constituency, there are more than 3000 entries which are in Dhule as well as in Malegoan..voter ID number, photo all are same. When the Election Commission have digitalised everything, why didn’t they notice this? The same people would vote in Dhule as well as in Malegoan,” Bawankule said while speaking to ANI.
“In Maharashtra, I feel like this has happened in 30-40 Assembly constituencies. We have given a complaint to the Election Commission today. Those officials who are working like this, action needs to be taken against them, BJP has put forward this demand. This is a big conspiracy. This is especially the votes of one particular community,” he added.
Highlighting concerns from previous elections, Bawankule pointed out instances of voter deletions in 2019 and called for an investigation by the Election Commission to rectify these issues.

“In 2019 as well, there was a deletion of voters for lot of booths. Now we have asked the election commission to go to all the houses, and see wherever the deletion of names has happened,” he said.

The allegation by the BJP leader comes ahead of the Assembly elections in Maharashtra, which are scheduled to be held in November, this year.
Meanwhile, The Election Commission of India on Thursday accepted the demand raised by the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) party to accept public contributions in view of the upcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra.

The party had requested the Commission to issue a communication/certificate recording the status of the party for the purpose of accepting voluntary contributions from public. A delegation of the party led by their General Secretary, Subhash Desai also met the Commission today at Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi.

The ECI in its communication dated July 18, has authorized the party to ‘accept any amount of contribution voluntarily offered to it by any person or company other than a government company’ in compliance under Section 29 B and Section 29C of the Representation of People Act, 1951, which governs the contribution to all political parties.
“It entails, special exemption under Section 13 A of the IT Act in which any income of a political party which is chargeable under the head “Income from house property” or “Income from other sources” or “Capital gains” or any income by way of voluntary contributions received by a political party from any person shall not be included in the total income of the previous year of such political party,” the ECI said.