Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 26 : Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday warned that Mumbai will take to the streets in huge numbers against "Vote Chori" (vote theft) starting October 2 if Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar does not step down.
Thackeray stated on X, "If Gyanesh doesn’t go, Mumbai will step out against Vote Chori from 2nd October, in huge numbers!!"
Thackeray’s warning came in response to a post by Abhijeet Dipke, who announced that if Gyanesh Kumar does not resign, the CJP will launch a nationwide protest starting from Mumbai on October 2, before expanding it to other cities across India.
"This Gandhi Jayanti, let’s pledge to save democracy," Dipke's post read.
This comes after a political controversy erupted following a report by the Indian Express that said that decisions taken on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process were objected to by two of the three Election Commissioners.
According to the report, "Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi objected at least 14 times over the last 10 months to decisions taken and orders issued without their knowledge."
Earlier on Thursday, Abhijeet Dipke demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, alleging that more than 13 crore votes had been deleted and questioning whether such action was consistent with democracy.
Dipke alleged that Kumar posed a threat to India’s democracy and claimed that the government was deciding who gets to vote and who does not since Kumar became Chief Election Commissioner.
“In total, more than 13 crore votes have been deleted. This is not a small number,” Dipke said, adding that the alleged deletion amounted to around 13-14 per cent of the total votes.
He questioned whether the alleged deletion was intended to widen the 2 per cent margin between the opposition and the ruling party, referring to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.“Is Gyanesh Kumar deleting them intentionally to widen that 2% gap so that they never lose office? Why is this being done? What was the need to delete so many votes?" he asked.
Dipke also alleged that regional political leaders had been targeted and defeated one by one after the BJP failed to secure a majority in the 2024 election.
He claimed that 50,000 votes were deleted from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s constituency, 100,000 from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s constituency and 40,000 from former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s constituency.
“In West Bengal, 50,000 votes were deleted from Mamata Banerjee’s constituency, and she lost by a margin of around 15,000 votes. In MK Stalin’s constituency, 100,000 votes were deleted, and he lost by about 45,000 votes. In Delhi, 40,000 votes were deleted from Arvind Kejriwal’s constituency, and he lost by a margin of 4000-5000 votes,” he said.