Prohibitory orders, security in place as Maharashtra village plans 'repoll' with ballot papers

Solapur: Heavy police security was deployed on Tuesday at a village in Maharashtra's Malshiras assembly segment after some locals cast doubt on the EVMs and insisted on conducting a "re-election" with ballot papers, officials said.

The Malshiras sub-divisional magistrate on Monday imposed prohibitory orders, under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita, from December 2 to 5 in the area to avoid any conflict or law and order situation due to the "repoll" plan of some locals, an official said.

Residents of Markadwadi village under Malshiras segment in Solapur district have put up banners claiming a "repoll" will be held on December 3.

The village comes under the Malshiras assembly constituency, where NCP (SP) candidate Uttam Jankar defeated BJP's Ram Satpute by 13,147 votes in the November 20 state polls, the results of which were declared on November 2.

Though Jankar won the seat, Markadwadi residents claimed he polled less votes in their village against Satpute which was not possible.

Local resident Ranjit Markad claimed the village had 2,000 eligible voters on the polling day, and 1,900 of them exercised their franchise.

"The village always supported Jankar in the past, but this time, as per the counting of votes through EVMs, Jankar got 843 votes while BJP candidate Satpute polled 1,003 votes. This is not possible and we do not trust these EVM numbers, that is why we decided to conduct the repoll through ballot papers," said Markad.

The EVM results are doubtful and a delegation of villagers had approached the district administration for a repoll using ballot papers, but the request was rejected, another villager said.

A group of locals at the Markadwadi village on Tuesday morning made arrangements for the "repoll" with the use of ballot papers.

Taking cognisance, prohibitory orders have already been imposed and heavy police security deployed in the village as a group of locals gathered outside the place where they have scheduled "repolling".

Uttam Jankar, who was also in Markadwadi, said the district administration has deployed a huge police bandobast in the village.

"The police have closed roads in the village, warned that cases would be filed and the polling material will be confiscated, but once all the villagers gather here, the repolling will start as villagers are determined to take part in the polling," he said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (Malshiraj division) Narayan Shirgavkar said adequate security has been deployed to avoid any law and order situation in the village.

In the recently-concluded Maharashtra polls, the Mahayuti won 230 of the state's 288 seats, with the BJP emerging victorious in 132, followed by Shiv Sena in 57 and Ajit Pawar's NCP in 41 seats.

The Maha Vikas Aghadi, comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and Sharad Pawar's NCP (SP) managed to get just 46 seats.