Nashik: Former MLA Asif Shaikh, alleging that more than 28,000 voters registered in the Malegaon Central assembly constituency were without any address, met Maharashtra’s chief electoral officer S Chokalingam, and registered a complaint of “vote theft” in the constituency. Shaikh, who contested as a candidate of the newly formed ISLAM Party, lost the election. He attributed his defeat to a large influx of voters into the constituency.”As many as 42,000 names in the constituency are bogus or are repeated. All these people voted during the election, and that means somebody included their names in the list. More than 28,000 voters do not have addresses and more than 11,000 are repeated,” claimed Shaikh. He alleged that these actions were orchestrated by a particular political party.“The booth level officers (BLOs), who are supposed to be representatives of govt bodies, are agents of a particular political party. They included these names systematically. Has anybody wondered how the name of a person could be in the electoral list, but without any address?” Shaikh asked.The former MLA has demanded an inquiry and action against those who acted illegally and contributed to the “vote theft” in the constituency. tnn
