"Huge scam in percentage of votes in Assembly polls": Maharashtra Cong chief Nana Patole writes to ECI

Nagpur: Accusing the Election Commission of India of tampering with voter data in the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly elections, state Congress chief Nana Patole on Friday wrote to the ECI seeking to know how voter turnout increased by 7.83 percentage points after the official polling time had ended.
Raising questions over EVMs, Patole, in a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer, said that public "sentiment" has become "extremely intense" as there is a huge "scam" in the percentage of votes in the Assembly elections.
"Doubts are being raised from many levels on the 7.83 per cent increase in votes. Looking at the vote figures announced by the Election Commission, there must have been long queues at the polling stations after 5 pm on the day of voting. In how many constituencies in the state were there long queues of voters after 5 pm?" Patole said his letter to the apex poll body.
He further demanded that the Election Commission announce "evidence," including video footage.
"According to the official figures released by the Election Commission, 65.2 per cent voting was done till 11.30 pm on November 20. The official figures released on the next day, i.e. on November 21 at 3 pm, were 66.05 per cent. Where did the 1.03 per cent discrepancy in the figures officially released by the Election Commission itself come from? How did a whopping nine lakh ninetynine thousand and three hundred and fifty nine votes increase in a single day? Considering the discrepancy in the percentage of votes, this seems serious and worrying. If there are doubts in the minds of the public about this increase in votes, it is the duty of the Election Commission to dispel them. The Election Commission itself should come forward and clarify its position with evidence and give a satisfactory answer to the doubts in the minds of the public," Patole added.
Speaking to ANI, he said that the Election Commission must explain how such an increase was possible.
"Election Commission, at 5 pm (20th November) when they showed the voting percentage, it was 58 per cent, at 11:59 pm, the number was 65.2 per cent, so the question is there would have long queue...where were those long queues, we have sought such videos from Election Commission. Next day 3 pm, they tweeted that 66.5 per cent voting took place, which means by next day they increased the voting percentage by 1.3 per cent...we want to ask Election Commission, where did this voting happen?" he added.
The opposition has raised questions over EVMs, mentioning the rise in voting percentage in compression to the parliamentary elections, which were held months ago.
NCP-SCP leader Rohit Pawar said that there has been a huge rise in voting (percentage).
"In comparison to parliamentary elections, 76 lakh more voters have voted in assembly elections... We need to investigate that. There are a lot of complaints against EVMs," said NCP-SCP leader Rohit Pawar said.
Earlier, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge demanded the replacement of Electronic Voting machines (EVMs) with ballot papers, alleging that votes from "SC, ST, OBC and poor communities are being wasted."
The Maha Vikas Aghadi - comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Sharad Pawar and the Congress - won just 46 seats.
The BJP emerged as the biggest winner with 132 seats out of 280 member Maharashtra assembly, while its allies--the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde and the NCP led by Ajit Pawar--won 57 and 41 seats, respectively. The Maharashtra assembly elections were held on November 20, and the results were declared on November 23.