Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of acting as a “weapon” of the ruling BJP, while MNS chief Raj Thackeray demanded that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Maharashtra be scrapped.
Thousands of people joined a protest march led by the Thackeray cousins in Mumbai against the Election Commission. The march, dubbed the Virat Garjana Morcha, began at Metro Cinema and culminated in a rally outside the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters in south Mumbai.
Congress leaders Balasaheb Thorat and Vijay Wadettiwar, along with NCP (SP) leaders Jayant Patil, Shashikant Shinde, Jitendra Awhad and Anil Deshmukh, participated in the rally.
The protesters demanded the removal or resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the SIR process. Political party flags were not allowed during the march, with participants asked to carry only the national tricolour.
Addressing the rally, Uddhav questioned the Centre’s stated objective behind the SIR exercise.
“If the SIR was conducted to weed out Bangladeshis from the voters' list, then how many Bangladeshis residing illegally in the country did the government find?” he asked.
“Gyanesh Kumar is a weapon of the BJP,” Uddhav alleged.
He claimed that two crore voters had been deleted from Maharashtra’s electoral rolls during the SIR, while alleging similar deletions in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Uddhav also accused the BJP of “stealing” votes and lawmakers and alleged that it had also taken away donations made to the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
He warned BJP leaders and officials of possible prosecution in the future, drawing a comparison with the Nuremberg Trials. He said the Opposition’s fight was not against any particular party, leader, religion or caste, but for the country’s freedom.
“The BJP should realise that people are quiet today. If they become agitated, they will burn down its throne,” he claimed.
Uddhav also criticised the Supreme Court for not taking up an urgent hearing on a West Bengal SIR matter earlier this week, ahead of bypolls in the state. The court is scheduled to hear the matter on October 5.
“This shows how they are controlling all institutions,” he alleged.
Raj Thackeray demanded that elections in the country be conducted through paper ballots and called for the immediate cancellation of the SIR exercise in Maharashtra.
He claimed he had been raising concerns about alleged irregularities in the Election Commission since 2017-18 and said he had previously met then Congress president Sonia Gandhi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee over EVMs and electoral rolls.
Raj questioned the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and the Maharashtra Assembly polls held six months later, claiming that the Opposition’s vote share could not have declined while the BJP’s increased significantly in such a short period.
“I only want to tell the ruling party that we don't have anger about you coming to power, but the anger is about how you got the power and the way you are using it,” he said.
He also alleged that the BJP had no fear of electoral backlash because of its alleged support from the Election Commission.
Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat backed the agitation, saying Rahul Gandhi had long raised the issue of “vote theft” and presented evidence to support his allegations.
Thorat criticised the changes to the process of appointing Election Commission members, alleging that the removal of the Supreme Court judge from the selection panel had paved the way for the present situation.
“Gyanesh Kumar is a symbol of this corrupt administration,” he alleged.
Thorat said the period since 2014 would be remembered as a “dark period” in the country’s history and called for efforts to restore democracy and protect the Constitution.
The protest was also backed by Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke, who had held a ‘Jail Bharo Andolan’ against the CEC in Mumbai on Friday. He called for people across the country to unite, saying, “It’s now or never.”
(With inputs from PTI)