Maha village cancels 'repoll' plan with ballot amid EVM row

A group of villagers from Maharashtra's Malshrias assembly segment insisting on a "re-election" with ballot papers relented on Tuesday and gave up their plan after police intervention, the NCP-SP winning candidate from the seat said.

A senior police official said they had cautioned the villagers that legal action would be initiated if they went ahead with their "polling" plan.

Earlier, residents of Markadwadi village under Malshiras segment in Solapur district had put up banners claiming a "repoll" will be held on December 3.

The village comes under the Malshiras assembly constituency, where NCP-SP candidate Uttam Jankar defeated BJP's Ram Satpute by 13,147 votes in the November 20 state polls, the results of which were declared on November 2.

Though Jankar won the seat, Markadwadi residents claimed he polled less votes in their village against Satpute, which was not possible, and cast doubt on the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

The Malshiras sub-divisional magistrate on Monday imposed prohibitory orders, under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, from December 2 to 5 in the area to avoid any conflict or law and order situation due to the "repoll" plan of locals, an official earlier said.

Heavy police security was deployed as a group of locals at the village made arrangements on Tuesday morning for the "repoll" with the use of ballot papers.

Later, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Malshiras division) Narayan Shirgavkar said they had a detailed meeting with the villagers and NCP-SP leader Jankar.

"We explained to them procedures in the law and also warned that even if one vote is cast, cases will be registered," Shirgavkar said.

Jankar said he had a meeting with police officials and also a discussion with villagers, following which they cancelled the "repoll" plan.

"We had a meeting with police officials who said they will seize all the material at the polling station and will file cases," the NCP-SP leader said.

"After the meeting with police, we had a discussion with villagers. Their opinion was that if the administration is not allowing the polling to take place, there will be chaos and conflict between police and residents and as a result, the process will not take place and people will leave the polling station," he said.

Considering the stand of the police administration, the villagers decided to stop the "polling" process, Jankar said.

"However, we will continue our protest by other means. We will try to take this issue to various authorities such as the Election Commission and judiciary and we will not stop until we get justice," he said.

Earlier, local resident Ranjit Markad claimed the village had 2,000 eligible voters on the polling day, and 1,900 of them exercised their franchise.

"The village always supported Jankar in the past, but this time, as per the counting of votes through EVMs, Jankar got 843 votes while BJP candidate Satpute polled 1,003 votes. This is not possible and we do not trust these EVM numbers, that is why we decided to conduct the repoll through ballot papers," said Markad.

The EVM results are doubtful and a delegation of villagers had approached the district administration for a repoll using ballot papers, but the request was rejected, another villager said.

In the recently-concluded Maharashtra polls, the Mahayuti won 230 of the state's 288 seats, with the BJP emerging victorious in 132, followed by Shiv Sena in 57 and Ajit Pawar's NCP in 41 seats.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi, comprising the Shiv Sena-UBT, Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP-SP, managed to get just 46 seats.