MUMBAI: Closing ranks ahead of the civic elections, the opposition bloc of Sena (UBT), Congress and NCP (SP) will hold a joint rally with Raj Thackeray-led MNS on Nov 1 against “arbitrary and corrupt administration of Election Commission”.The announcement was made Sunday, just after Raj accused EC of inserting 96 lakh fake voters in the electoral lists across Maharashtra for the benefit of those in office. “An attempt is being made to finish off regional parties… 8-10 lakh fake voters have been added in Mumbai and 8-8.5 lakh in Thane, Pune and Nashik each,” Raj said at a party meeting.This will be the first time Congress and MNS cadres will be marching together amid rumblings in the national party’s city unit over an alliance, even though the two parties have been part of the opposition’s meeting with EC on electoral lists. Left parties have also signalled their support for the initiative aimed at bringing the opposition together and keeping the ‘vote chori’ narrative alive ahead of the local body polls.“We will soon announce the time and route of the march in Mumbai… We are going to show the entire country how Maharashtra is fighting to protect democracy,” said Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut at a joint press conference at Shiv Sena (UBT) Bhavan. The meet was attended by NCP (SP) MLA Jayant Patil, Congress functionary Sachin Sawant, MNS functionaries Bala Nandgaonkar and Abhijit Panse, and CPI functionary Prakash Reddy.Raut said people from every district who had lost their right to vote would join the march. “We will show the strength of the voters to the PM, the Union home minister and EC. It is necessary to give a jolt to EC. We also want to tell EC and the rulers in Delhi that Maharashtra is not sitting idle while so much injustice is happening,” Raut said.Raj also asked EC how it would hold local body polls without cleaning up the electoral list. Addressing MNS booth-level agents, he urged them to verify the lists to weed out fake voters. “If polls have to be held peacefully, then clean the electoral list first,” he warned. Without naming BJP, he said the party in office wanted to contest elections by adding fake names to the voters’ list. “It does not matter whether you cast a vote or not. The match has been fixed. What kind of democracy is this?” Raj said.
