'Votes never reached': Raj Thackeray alleges ‘vote theft’ happening for 10 years

MAharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj william makepeace thackeray on sat attacked the Election direction of bharat (EC), locution that he had been talking about `vote theft' since 2016.Thackeray said that the EC should have conducted a probe into the ‘vote theft’ allegations, as both Congress MP and leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anurag Thakur alleged voter list fraud.He warned his party's local office bearers that they should carefully scrutinise the voter list ahead of the upcoming civic body polls in Maharashtra."Our candidates got defeated not because they did not get votes, but because the votes cast for them never reached them. Therefore, if we want success, we will have to expose their vote theft. Every party worker needs to scrutinise voter lists carefully," PTI quoted Raj Thackeray as saying.The MNS chief also referred to Rahul Gandhi's and Anurag Thakur's allegations of manipulating voter lists, saying the EC fears an investigation as the “vote theft of the last 10 years will be exposed.”"When members from the Opposition as well as the government are raising doubts, the ECI should have investigated them, but it prefers to suppress the matter. The EC will not do it, as it fears that the vote theft of the last 10 years will be exposed. They have managed to form the government by stealing votes all these years," Thackeray said, without specifying which political party he was talking about.The MNS did not win a single seat in the 2024 Maharashtra assembly election. The party is reportedly allying with Uddhav Thackeray's Shiv Sena (UBT) for the upcoming civic body polls in the state.The ‘vote theft’ allegationsThe opposition INDIA bloc is accusing the Narendra Modi government of vote theft ahead of the Bihar assembly polls. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spearheaded the allegations, holding a press conference on August 7 to allege voter list fraud in Karnataka’s Mahadevpura and beyond.The EC refuted the charges and asked him to give evidence under oath. Gandhi refused to do so, saying he had taken the oath of the constitution and that the data he used was from the apex poll body itself. BJP's Anurag Thakur held his own press conference and alleged discrepancies in the voter lists in several opposition-held constituencies, including Rahul Gandhi's Rae Bareli and Priyanka Gandhi's Wayanad.Rahul Gandhi is on a ‘vote adhikaar yatra’ in Bihar ahead of the assembly poll in the state, trying to make a case to the people.