On May 13, Nana Naukare, a farmer who lives in the Maharashtrian city of Parli, went to his designated polling booth in Sharda Nagar’s Vivek Vardhini primary school to cast his vote. His finger was inked but before he could reach the ballot machine, he was asked to leave by “some men who were not election officers”. “Dhakke maar ke nikal diya,” he told Scroll. They pushed me out of the booth.
Naukare said he did not make more attempts to get to the ballot machine fearing for the safety of his family. “My family and I left,” he said, adding that an election officer was present on the spot but could do nothing. “We did not want to take any risk.”
Several voters across Parli, one of six assembly segments in Beed Lok Sabha constituency, recounted similar experience of being denied their right to vote to Scroll. Opposition workers alleged that voters were threatened by party workers of the Mahayuti alliance – the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party.
Bajrang Sonawane, a leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) who standing for election from Beed, in a letter to Election Commission alleged that booths in 33 villages in Parli assembly, three villages in Kaij assembly and two in Majalgaon assembly segment were captured – that is, either many voters were turned away or their fingers inked without allowing them to cast their vote or bogus votes were cast.
“The first call I received was from a Muslim woman in Dharmapuri at 9 am,” Sonawane said. “She said her finger was inked and somebody else cast a vote on her behalf.” Dharmapuri, he added, has around 1,000 Muslim voters.
Sonawane, a candidate of the Opposition INDIA bloc, is taking on Pankaja Munde, a former BJP legislator from Parli in this election.
On May 13, Sonawane filed a complaint with the Election Commission and demanded a repoll in certain booths of Parli, Majalgaon and Kaij. The complaint also stated that Muslims in Dharmapuri village and voters from backward class in Jirewadi village were not allowed to vote.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.
