Team Thackeray and Eknath Shinde's Sena fought a very close contest in Mumbai North West
Amid the row over news reports claiming that the phone of a Shiv Sena candidate's aide was connected to an EVM during counting of votes in Mumbai's North West Lok Sabha seat, leaders of NDA and INDIA bloc in Maharashtra are trading barbs.
Ravindra Waikar, a leader of Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena won the Mumbai North West seat by a margin of just 48 votes. The runner-up was Amol Kirtikar from Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). The Thackery-led faction bagged nine Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, while Mr Shinde's Sena got seven.
Soon after the news reports emerged, leaders of Uddhav Thackeray's party demanded that the CCTV footage of counting day be released.
The Election Commission has trashed the news reports and issued notices to the publishers.
Vandana Suryavanshi, returning officer of Mumbai North West, said an EVM was a standalone system and there was no need for an OTP to unlock it. "It is not programmable and has no wireless communication capabilities. It is a lie being spread by a newspaper," she told the media.
The poll official, however, admitted that the personal mobile phone of one Dinesh Gurav, data entry operator of Jogeshwari assembly constituency, was found with an unauthorised person -- Mr Waikar's brother-in-law Mangesh Pandilkar -- and action is being taken. "Data entry and vote counting are two different aspects. An OTP enables the ARO to open the encore login system for data entry. The counting process is independent and has nothing to do with unauthorised use of mobile phone, which is an unfortunate incident and is being probed," she added.
The official said that neither Mr Waikar nor Mr Kirtikar had sought a recount of votes. She added that CCTV footage cannot be given without court orders.
Aaditya Thackeray, Uddhav Thackeray's son and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader, said the Election Commission lacks the courage to release the CCTV footage of the counting centre. "We have always had suspicions about this regime tampering with EVMs. Even Elon Musk has expressed his views, claiming everything can be hacked. Despite several requests, the Election Commission does not have the courage to release the CCTV footage of the counting day that would support our claims," Mr Thackeray said.
Team Thackeray also got support from its ally Congress. Senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said the poll result of Mumbai North West Lok Sabha seat must be stayed. The Election Commission, he said, must call a meeting of all parties and discuss this issue thoroughly. "There must be a probe into the unauthorised used of the mobile phone. The FIR report has not been made public," he added.
The political row over the news reports on the Mumbai North West seat was fuelled by a social media remark by X boss and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Responding to a post on Puerto Rico elections, Musk wrote, "We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high."
The remark drew a sharp response from BJP leader and former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Saying that while Musk's view may apply to other places where voting machines are connected to the Internet, the BJP leader said EVMs in India are secure and isolated from any network and "there is no way in".
Opposition parties, however, latched on to Elon Musk's remark to question the EVM method. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said EVMs in India "are a 'black box' and nobody is allowed to scrutinize them". "Serious concerns are being raised about transparency in our electoral process. Democracy ends up becoming a sham and prone to fraud when institutions lack accountability," he said, while sharing Musk's post and a news report on Ravindra Waitkar's election.
Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief and a Congress ally, shared Musk's post with a note: "Technology is to remove problems, if they become a cause of problems, their use must be stopped."
Mr Gandhi's remarks on EVMs drew a response from Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who said the Congress leader must resign and contest the polls again if he does not trust EVMs.
"Rahul Gandhi has won from two places. The same EVM was kept there also, so he should say that the EVM machine was faulty everywhere and he should resign and contest the election again," he said. "According to him, where they get good seats, the EVMs are fine, and where they get fewer seats, the EVMs are faulty. Will this happen?," Mr Shinde added.
The Shiv Sena leader, whose mutiny against Uddhav Thackeray split the party and toppled the Sena-NCP-Congress government in Maharashtra, questioned the Opposition's stance on EVMs.
"Wherever the Maha Vikas Aghadi has won, there the EVM machine has functioned correctly. But wherever they lose, they are (opposition) raising objections on the machine. What kind of behaviour is this?," he said.