In the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections, BJP suffered a massive defeat in Maharashtra. It was able to return just 9 seats out of the 28 it contested, a strike rate of 32%.
The defeat of so many candidates put the Narendra Modi chances of forming a government on the brink of a precipice. He had to take the support of Nitish Kumar and Chandra Baba Naidu for forming his government. His party failed to reach the magic figure of 272 in the parliament, stopping short at 240 seats. Had the BJP performed well in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana, Modi would have comfortably formed a majority government on his own.
Cut to five months later. In Maharashtra Assembly elections, BJP returned a strike rate of 89%, securing 132 seats out of 149 contested.
Two explanations are being given for this grand reversal of fortunes.
One is that RSS worked very hard on the ground and reached out to voters and used fear of division of votes in the name of religion to get people to vote in droves for BJP. Some commentators are saying that this worked along with a few other things like the Ladki Bahin scheme that pumped 1500 Rupees into the bank accounts of women between the age of 20-65 and this injection and the fear that if BJP lost, this scheme would be withdrawn, made women vote in huge numbers for BJP. These commentators attribute the turn of fortunes to the hard work of RSS.
The second explanation is that between the time of official closure of voting at 5 p.m. on 20th November 2024 and the night of 20th November 2024, the election commission upped the voting percentage by almost 6%. At 5 p.m. it issued a figure of 58.22%, which later became 65.02 and finally 66.05, thus adding a massive 47,00,000 voters to the final tally of those who voted.
This figure tells its own story. As per Congress these votes, around 50,000 each were recorded in 47 constituencies and BJP/ShivSena/NCP of Mahayuti won in all these 47 seats.
The EC has responded that it is not a rare phenomenon that there is a last hour surge in voter rush.
The over all voting figures are a clear departure from trends seen in 2024 general elections.
It is also being alleged that 47,00,000 voters were added between the Lok Sabha Election and State Assembly elections, with names of those who are seen opposed to the ruling alliance being deleted and new names being added, an exercise done by RSS on the sly.
So, what is the truth?
The first explanation looks like an attempt to explain the massive surge in voting and looks like an attempt to cover up for the machinations that happened behind the scenes during the last five months.
The second explanation is rooted in hard data, data that can not be disputed or refuted. It is almost impossible for 50,000 people to vote in the time following the end of poll. If an average voter takes 3 to 4 minutes to cast his vote, then it would take 50,000 people around 12,500 minutes, that is 208 Hours. If we consider that there were 100 booths per assembly where this voting happened, it would still take 2.08 hours of extra time.
How to find the truth?
Truth can get revealed by collating the Form 17-C of each booth, where the end time, total number of people who voted, is all collated and put together. That will reveal in how many booths did the voting continue late into the night?
Serious doubts have been raised about the EVM, which is compounded by the SC’s rejection of proposal of counting the VVPAT slips. With the VVPAT’s never being counted, it is better do away with the machines as they serve no real purpose.
The die has been cast. At the time of writing this article, a government has not taken over in Maharashtra as the winning party’s squabble over ministries and the CM post. While Shinde Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar NCP have elected their leaders, BJP is yet unable to elect its leader out of its elected MLA’s.
The extensive use of money is a worrying factor for citizens of the country. The bribing done by the ruling combine and the promise to continue the bribing by the INDIA block does not augur well with the future of democracy.
