Mumbai police have filed a case against the brother-in-law of Ravindra Waikal, the newly elected MP from North West Mumbai, for allegedly smuggling a mobile phone into the counting centre on the day results were announced for the Lok Sabha elections. Indian Express report.
Police have booked Mangesh Pandilkar under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code and for disobeying a public service order under the Representation of People Act.
Waikar, a member of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena faction, won the Mumbai North West seat on June 4, defeating Amol Kirtikar of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).
Critical initially appeared to have won, but the margin of victory was so small that Waikar asked for a recount. A recount of the votes cast by electronic voting machines showed that Critical had received one more vote than Waikar. However, a recheck of the postal votes showed that Waikar had a 48-vote lead.
Waikal was ultimately declared the winner in what was the closest election of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
However, after the results, Kirtikar and other losing candidates alleged irregularities in the counting process. Kirtikar claimed that election officials had released the vote count after each round of voting until the 19th round, but stopped doing so after that.
“After the 26th round, they directly announced Waikal as the favourite to win,” he claimed. Indian Express.
Two other candidates, Bharat Shah of the Hindu Samaj Party and Surinder Arora of the Indian Jan Aadhaar Party, had also alleged that people were seen talking on phones at the polling booths, violating rules.
After a case was filed against Pandilkar on Wednesday, police collected closed-circuit television camera footage from the tallying centre and an investigation reportedly found that he did not have permission to bring a mobile phone into the area.
