Poll body deploying BLOs who ‘can’t read or write’, says Aaditya
Mumbai (PTI): Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday said some booth-level officers (BLOs), who are "unable to read or write", were tasked with gathering information about voters in Mumbai, and alleged multiple entries of voters in the draft list.
Addressing a press conference, the former minister said that his party had filed 3,000 to 4,000 objections in each of the 227 civic wards of Mumbai.
He said that Sena (UBT) office-bearers and frontal organisations have been scanning the draft voters' lists, looking for irregularities.
Thackeray claimed that the draft voters' lists had 14 lakh voters, with multiple entries, most of whom are "Marathi, political workers and public representatives of the Opposition parties".
He further accused the state election commission of sending BLOs who cannot read or write to gather and verify information about voters.
"Those who cannot read or write are visiting people's homes as BLOs. You (poll body) are sending people who do not even know how to write or read," he said.
Demanding the suspension of officials heading poll bodies, Thackeray said the Election Commission has turned into a circus.
He cited instances of voters with multiple entries, claiming Sena (UBT) MLC Sunil Shinde's name figured seven times in the draft list with different ages, addresses and photos, while former Mumbai mayor Shraddha Jadhav's name came up eight times in the voters' list.
The names of Congress MLA Jyoti Gaikwad and Mumbai South Central MP Anil Desai also figured multiple times in the draft list, he said.
Thackeray also alleged that every poll booth has names of deceased voters, and this is despite their families submitting their death certificates.
Polls to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the richest civic body in the country, are slated to be held early next month.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
