The Mumbai unit of the Congress on Friday claimed that there were 11 lakh duplicate voters in the draft electoral roll released for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections and demanded that the list be made public, The Hindu reported.
A delegation of the Opposition party members led by Varsha Gaikwad, Lok Sabha MP representing Mumbai North Central and Mumbai Congress chief, met the state election commissioner and sought an immediate clarification.
This came after the State Election Commission on Wednesday extended the deadline for the final publication of voter rolls for all local body elections in Maharashtra from December 5 to December 10, The Hindustan Times reported.
The extension was granted after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and other civic bodies received a large number of complaints about erroneous shifting of voters and duplicate entries.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is the governing civic body for Mumbai.
This is the second extension and is likely to further delay the local body elections in the state, including for the zilla parishads, panchayats and municipal corporations.
Elections in 27 municipal corporations, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, along with 243 nagar parishads and 289 panchayats, have been stalled since 2022 due to a Supreme Court case on reservations for Other Backward Classes.
This means that most urban and rural bodies in the state have been functioning without elected representatives, whose terms ended between 2020 and 2022.
In September, the Supreme Court also criticised the State Election Commission for its failure to adhere to an earlier timeline set by the court to conduct local body elections in the state. The court set January 31, 2026, as the final deadline.
On December 2, polling for smaller urban and rural bodies – 246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats – will be held, with results on December 3. Elections to the larger municipal corporations, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, are expected in January 2026.
An unidentified official from the state urban development department told the Hindustan Times on Wednesday that the State Election Commission had planned to hold the local body elections between January 15 and 20.
“But with this extension [on the publication of the final voter list ahead], the elections are expected to be delayed at least by two weeks,” the official was quoted as saying.
On the alleged duplicate names in the draft voter list for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls, Gaikwad on Friday claimed that district collectors and civic deputy commissioners had been unable to explain the anomaly or the procedure to address them, The Hindu reported.
The Congress leader claimed that the draft list had been released without proper coordination between the State Election Commission and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation administration.
“Officials say affidavits may be required from duplicate voters,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. “This will only create more confusion and could reduce voter turnout. Citizens are being subjected to unnecessary harassment.”
The Lok Sabha MP said that the state poll panel should publish a list of duplicate voters and specify where each duplicate entry has been recorded.
The Congress has repeatedly accused the Election Commission of large-scale vote rigging, including in the Maharashtra Assembly polls held in November 2024, alleging what they called “industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of national institutions.”
The Election Commission has rejected these allegations
On November 5, a day before the first phase of polling for the Assembly elections in Bihar took place, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged at a press conference that there was large-scale rigging in the 2024 Haryana polls as well.
He claimed that about 25 lakh fake voters were added to the electoral rolls of the state ahead of the polls held in October 2024.
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!