Mumbai, May 20: On Wednesday, a delegation from the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) met with Maharashtra’s Chief Electoral Officer, S. Chokalingam, to demand transparency in the upcoming Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list.
The opposition alliance insisted that this intensive campaign, conducted at the booth level, should be entirely fair, transparent, and free from discrimination to ensure that no genuine voter is deprived of their voting rights.
The memorandum presented contained 36 points, primarily aimed at ensuring the fair operation of the SIR process, so that no one is denied their right to vote.
Key leaders from the Maha Vikas Aghadi included State Congress President Harshvardhan Sapkal, Congress Legislative Party Leader Vijay Wadettiwar, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, and Ambadas Danve, along with Shashikant Shinde, State President of the Nationalist Congress Party (SP), and former MLA Sunil Bhusara.
The delegation expressed concern over past incidents in other states where voters from specific communities were allegedly excluded from voting.
They demanded that no voter’s name be removed from the voter list without formal notice at least seven days in advance, allowing them adequate time to respond.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi noted that over the last 25 years, the number of voters in Maharashtra has increased by 35 million, emphasizing that there should be no rush in this process.
With no major elections scheduled in the state for the next two to three years, they suggested that the process could safely be completed over a period of one and a half to two years to ensure thorough verification.
The opposition also requested that comprehensive data from the special intensive revision be shared with political parties in machine-readable formats, such as soft copies and optical character recognition, in addition to hard copies.
They stressed the importance of preserving this data at the voter registration officer and district electoral officer levels for a minimum of five years.
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