Maha Police foil ‘mock’ ballot paper poll in EVM-sceptical Solapur village

Solapur (Maharashtra) (The Uttam Hindu): The Solapur Police on Tuesday thwarted a ‘mock ballot paper poll’ in the Markadwadi village ostensibly to clear the nagging doubts on Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) results in the recent Maharashtra Assembly elections. The mock ballot paper poll -- billed as ‘unprecedented’ anywhere -- was organised in the village by the Nationalist Congress Party (SP) MLA Uttamrao S. Jankar who trounced the sitting legislator Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Ram V. Satpute in the reserved Malshiras (SC) seat, by a margin of just 13,417 votes.

The mock poll preparations were made with enthusiasm for the past week after the election results were announced on November 23, but the local police compelled the new legislator and his supporters to call it off with warnings of stringent action against anybody who could cast even a single vote on the ballot paper. The local electors here are around 2,000 of whom 1,900 actually voted and Jankar claimed that they suspected foul play and manipulation in the counting process as the village showed that Satpute (the vanquished BJP nominee) secured more votes than the winner (Jankar).

To clear the doubts, the Markadwadi village united to conduct the mock polls with properly printed ballot papers showing all the candidates (akin to the EVMs), verification of each voter, tin ballot boxes with seals, officials to hold the polls, etc., sparking huge excitement among the locals and state political circles. The police clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 and warned of the strict action “if even one person dared to vote”, and consequently, around 400 who had turned up for the mock polls returned, and the rest did not turn up.

“We have told the villagers to follow the laws, not step out in huge numbers to avoid any problems. We also informed the organisers that if even one vote is cast, we shall seize all their election materials, ballot papers, boxes, etc.,” a local police official told media persons. A peeved Jankar said that since the police have threatened to stop the mock voting and take away the polling material, “so, there is no point in conducting this exercise”.

The MLA spoke with the police and then held an impromptu meeting with the village elders plus his supporters in the election pandal, and they finally decided to cancel the mock poll but would resort to other forms of anti-EVM protests at the local and district levels in the coming days. Jankar pointed out that in his stronghold of Markadwadi, he secured only 843 votes while Satpute’s count was much higher, 1,003 votes almost double, “which the villagers are unable to digest”.

In media interactions, the local village activists contended that around 1,400 had voted for Jankar and Sapute may have got around 502 votes, and they suspected something seriously wrong.

In order to verify how their votes for Jankar went to Satpute “through the EVMs”, the villagers opted for the mock poll to satisfy their doubts, but the BJP supporters there had decided to boycott it.

The initiative by villagers of Markadwadi earned appreciation from Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders like Nana Patole, Jankar, Sanjay Raut, Kishore Tiwari, Kiran Mane, social activist-lawyer Asim Sarode, who also flayed the authorities for foiling the experiment, especially as it was not going to impact the state polls outcome in any manner.

The November 2024 Assembly elections gave a landslide to the Mahayuti regime of the Shiv Sena-BJP-Nationalist Congress Party, virtually erasing the MVA’s Congress-Shiv Sena(UBT)-NCP(SP) and dooming others like AIMIM, MNS or VBA.

However, the outcome has also been questioned by the losers from all political parties and at least 22 from different parties have sought recounting and other remedies to clear their doubts on EVMs.