Army (UBT) adopted aggressive stance against ‘vote theft’

A similar exercise is also going on along with BMC’s massive cleanliness drive. After working for hours, quietly and efficiently, the foot soldiers of Shiv Sena (UBT) are calling out the alleged “vote theft” by their rivals.

Running a parallel voter verification drive, thousands of party officials and workers recently worked at the branch level in all 227 civic wards of Mumbai. Local militia (UBT) leaders say their preliminary findings indicate that the number of identified fake or “fake” voters and duplicate names could have affected the outcome of the election had they not caught them in time.

He says his verification drive lends credence to claims first raised by the party’s electoral ally, Congress, and its leader Rahul Gandhi, who first spoke of “vote theft” more than a year ago.

he is fake

At Saptarshi Building on Borbhat Cross Lane in Girgaon, Vaibhav Kelkar is flicking his finger through a list. Kelkar, an up-shakha pramukh (deputy head of the branch), was surprised to see two names from the Muslim community registered as voters in his building. He has been living in Saptarshi Bhawan for 34 years and can confirm that these are fake entries. An objection along with supporting proof is then submitted to BMC, so that the roll can be updated.

Gat pramukh (group chief) Kiran Vedak is not far from Denewadi in Thakurdwar. Vedak was surprised to see the names of 10 of his 40 regular voters marked as “duplicate” in the voter list. He assured that these individuals have been living at the same address for several decades – there is no reason why they should be listed at any other address.

The party has marked wrong duplicate voters in all branches. The BMC has ordered that “duplicate” voters will have to submit a letter to the BMC, stating which ward they wish to vote from. Failure to do so could potentially jeopardize their votes at a later date. The question is, how will citizens know if they are listed as a “duplicate” or not?

As the results of the Army’s (UBT) verification drive are being collected and collated, local leaders say a disturbing trend is emerging: more than a few fake names are being added to the voter list, with thousands of voters with predominantly Marathi identities marked as “duplicates”. If his party workers had noticed this discrepancy, a large number of his supporters might have had trouble casting their votes.

In Lower Parel alone, the party claims that 3,750 voters out of 7,200 were declared “duplicates” who were their traditional voters, even though they had been living in the area for years.

If the claims of the Army (UBT) are true, they could have lost over a thousand traditional votes in each of the 227 civic wards of the BMC. They say that this would have compromised their chances in the elections.

what’s at stake?

The stakes are especially high for the Sena (UBT), for which the BMC elections could determine the future of the party. This will be the first time that the Uddhav Thackeray-led party will be pitted against the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena, after the split of the undivided Shiv Sena in 2022. Moreover, the Army (UBT) finds itself on the backfoot, as the Army is part of the ruling BJP-led Mahayuti coalition government in the state.

Facing a do-or-die battle, party workers are going all out in their voter-verification drive. In September, Thackeray had claimed that the voter list had increased by 14 lakh voters after the assembly elections in 2024. He had also asked party workers to keep an eye on the voter list in their respective areas.

A verification drive was launched by party leader Aditya Thackeray, MLA from Worli, and the results shocked the workers. A total of 19,333 voters with doubtful details were found in Thackeray’s assembly constituency alone.

Alarm bells rang in Army (UBT) branches across the city, and the voter verification drive was given priority above all else. And this is what it meant.

Each BMC ward comprises 40 to 45 booths. To verify each voter list, which contains around 1,200 names, party workers visited around 300 houses. Senior leaders of the party formulated a strategy, which they shared with all organizational heads on how to carry out the verification campaign.

Subsequently, copies of the voter list were made available at the branch level. Meetings of leaders in charge of booth level management were called and the verification process was explained. All types of anomalies were to be flagged, such as duplicate voters, voters with doubtful details, unknown fictitious voters, etc.

how it’s made

Branch No. 198 – Lower Parel – has over 47,000 voters registered in the civil ward – i.e. 43 lists (each list containing 900-1,200 names). This branch has given four mayors to Mumbai, including Dutta Nalawade, Mahadev Devale, Snehal Ambekar and Kishori Pednekar.

Branch chief Deepak Bagwe informed the team about the army of 22 sub-branch chiefs, 86 guard chiefs and 25 women sub-branch chiefs. First, a ‘Yadi Vachan’ (reading of all the names in the voter list) was done. Since they were all local, familiar names cropped up and others were flagged for investigation.

Shashikant Nandgaonkar, sub-branch head and Bank of Baroda employee, says, “I used to spend more than two hours every evening after work in verification. We found 15 voters with surnames like “Patil-Shinde” who do not live in the area. Our area is known as ‘mini-Kolhapur’ because of the number of people from Kolhapur, and Patil-Shinde is a common name among them. These fake voters were given surnames. Don’t raise the red flag,” Nandgaonkar alleged.

Female officer Supriya Katre also did the verification work after returning from work. Katre says, “We found that 178 voters who had left our area long ago remain in the list. The names of about 160 dead voters also need to be removed. We have submitted objections to the BMC.”

Worli branch chief Deepak Bagve said they have submitted over 7,000 objections related to duplicate names, unknown voters, transferred voters, changing booths etc. Bagwe says, “We realized that 3,750 older residents were marked as “duplicate” voters and no one knew about it. If we had not detected it in time, we could have lost votes.” He said that the party workers have also traced 171 unknown voters and have also submitted these objections.

In Girgaum, Ganesh Mule, branch guard, said he had noticed a worrying anomaly – around 200 voters in the two buildings were shifted to booth number 205, away from booth number 213. These were Marathi voters who traditionally voted for the Sena (UBT) and who might not have cast their vote because the new booth was too far from the regular booth. In a close contest, 200 votes can decide the outcome in a civic ward.

Nilesh Ahirekar, branch head of Girgaum branch number 218, has made a big allegation. He claims that this ward with 55,000 voters is a Sena (UBT) stronghold. However, during the 2017 civic elections, 11,000 non-Marathi voters from the second ward were added to this ward. Ahirekar says, “As a result, our party lost the seat to the BJP. We have experienced how voter transfer and other tactics affect the outcome of BMC elections. That is why we have worked hard on this voter verification campaign.”

Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Anil Parab says the verification drive is important as even a few hundred votes could cost the party a seat. “In the 2017 elections, our party lost more than 25 seats by a narrow margin. Our party workers in the branches have identified thousands of our traditional voters, who have been marked as “duplicates” in the voter list. This time, we are putting in all our strength to fight against the ruling coalition,” he told HT.

Municipal Corporation Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said the civic administration will follow the guidelines of the State Election Commission while cleaning the rolls. “As far as duplicate voters are concerned, our officials can sort out the issue till the ward-wise list of voters is declared. We are not depriving anyone of the right to vote. The only thing is that we will ensure that these voters have to declare the place where they want to vote.”