Mumbai: In the small village of Markadwadi in Malshiras taluka of Solapur, the voting pattern has always been very simple.
Regardless of which party Uttamrao Jankar aligns with, the villagers vote for him. In years when Jankar did not contest, they voted for his chosen candidate. So, on November 23, as the votes in the recently concluded state assembly election were being counted, the residents of Markadwadi were shocked, particularly at how the villagers appeared to have voted according to the poll numbers.
“It didn’t feel like the votes from our village were being counted,” says Sanjay Patil, a resident of Markadwadi.
‘1,003 votes’
Markadwadi has 2,046 registered voters, of whom 1,905 voted in the assembly polls. Many villagers, including the sarpanch and former sarpanch, do not trust the voting results. The data shows that of the total votes cast, 843 went to Jankar, who contested from the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Chandra Pawar). The Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from the constituency, Ram Satpute, received 1,003 votes from this village. Although Jankar won with a comfortable margin of over 13,000 votes, the villagers say the voting from their village cannot be accurate.
In the Lok Sabha elections concluded in June this year, NCP (SCP) nominee Dhairyasheel Mohite received 1,021 votes from the village, while Satpute, who lost the parliamentary polls, got only 466. This difference, the villagers claim, reflects the actual voting trend in the village.
Three days ago, the villagers passed a resolution to conduct a mock paper ballot election in the village. “Even though the process was meant to be a mock election, we were not mocking the election process. If anything, we wanted to ensure that people could trust the election process without a shadow of doubt in their minds,” former sarpanch Amit Waghmode told The Wire over a phone call.
For this election, the villagers decided to approach the tehsildar and seek proper permissions. “We didn’t want this process to be seen as defiance of the state, but rather as our little contribution to the election process.” However, the permission was denied.
The returning officer also rejected their request to set up a polling booth in the village, citing that no such provision existed in the rules.
Section 163
As news of the mock election on December 3 spread, a large police force was deployed. The state authorities also restricted the movement of the villagers by invoking Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (prohibiting individuals from engaging in certain activities). The election process has, for now, been stalled.
On December 2, as the prohibitory order was issued, Jankar visited the village. Although the villagers insist this process was not carried out under Jankar’s instructions, their close affinity with the elected MLA cannot be denied. Jankar announced his support for the villagers and said that the state authorities should not have any reason to oppose the re-polling, as it holds no constitutional validity.
The decision taken at Markadwadi is only a reflection of the larger unrest that has been triggered in the state after the assembly election results were announced on November 23. The BJP almost made a clean sweep winning 133 seats and the Mahayuti alliance together managed to win 235 seats. Ever since results day, many leaders, especially from the opposition Mahavikas Aghadi front have accused both the Election Commission and other state machineries of having manipulated the election process.
Congress has already complained to the Election Commission, raising concerns over the alleged “arbitrary deletion of voters and subsequent addition of voters” just before the assembly election. They have also raised concerns over an “inexplicable increase” in voting percentages between 5 pm and the final figures released on polling day.
