Sudhakar Badgujar, the defeated candidate from Shiv Sena (UBT), raised concerns about the integrity of the election process, alleging that the identification numbers of the EVMs, including the ballot units, control units, and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines, were mismatched at seven polling booths. The booths in question were 221, 329, 174, 06, 191, 269, and 306. Badgujar also questioned the replacement of these machines, claiming that neither the candidates nor their representatives were consulted during the process. He further alleged that votes had been cast in the names of deceased individuals, fueling suspicions of electoral fraud.

In response to these allegations, the Election Commission agreed to conduct a recount of the votes from 5 percent of the polling centres, in line with Supreme Court guidelines. Badgujar will have to pay Rs 40,000 plus 18 percent GST per unit to cover the recounting costs. This development has added further tension to an election that was already closely watched, with the contest between Hiray, Badgujar, and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s Dinkar Patil drawing significant attention.

A total of 274,208 votes were cast in the constituency, with 147,382 male voters and 126,823 female voters, along with 2,313 postal ballots. Despite the heated contest, Hiray maintained a commanding lead from the first round of vote counting, securing her victory after the final 30^th round.

EVM allegations and official response

Badgujar’s allegations prompted a detailed investigation into the EVM process. On November 23, the District Collector and Returning Officer, Jalaj Sharma, issued a statement dismissing the claims of discrepancies. He had explained that after the second randomization process, the allocation of machines to polling booths was finalised, and the information was shared with all candidates. Reserved machines were given to sector officers on polling day, and any faulty units were replaced in the presence of polling agents.

Sharma emphasised that no objections were raised by the candidates or their agents during the replacement of machines at the polling stations. A thorough scrutiny of the election process, including review of the 17A, 17C forms and the presiding officer’s diary, was conducted on November 21, where no discrepancies were found according to him. Additionally, no objections were raised by the candidates or their representatives during the scrutiny.

Despite this official response, the call for a recount has persisted, with Badgujar determined to ensure the fairness of the election process. The recounting, is reportedly now set to take place in a select number of polling centres, will be closely monitored, as the controversy over the integrity of the voting process continues to unfold.

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Democracy in question: Allegations of bias, EVM manipulation, and questions of legitimacy post 2024 Maha election result

VFD’s draft reports points to “electoral manipulation and irregularities” in Haryana and J&K 2024 assembly elections

The post Recounting ordered in Nashik West assembly election amid EVM tampering allegations appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Within two days of issuing a GR for forming a committee to get “detailed information about couples in interfaith and inter-caste marriages”, the Maharashtra government has conveniently removed inter-caste marriages from its scope, proving the critics right. What seemed to many as a harmless exercise to protect women and to reunite estranged women with their maternal families, is clearly a step towards monitoring inter-faith marriages in the State.

As rightly pointed out by women’s rights groups and parties in opposition, this move is nothing but a means to push the government’s sectarian agenda and an attempt to impinge upon people’s right to privacy.

As reported by Indian Express, the new GR stated that the panel had been renamed ‘Interfaith Marriage-Family Coordination Committee (state level)’ and “it was under the government’s consideration to amend the committee that was set up”.

“To stop fraud in the name of love jihad”

Speaking to The Indian Express, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “Tuesday’s GR of the WCD department has been amended. This committee is only for interfaith marriages, and not inter-caste marriages. The earlier GR was not the correct one.”

“The state government is encouraging inter-caste marriages and there is also a plan to give financial rewards to those who do it. But cheating in interfaith marriages has increased in the past few years and some aspects have come to light in the Shraddha Walkar murder case,” he added. He also said that , “It is alarming that there has been an increase in cases of cheating in interfaith marriages in some parts of the state. Therefore, fraud in the name of love jihad has to be stopped”.

Gujarat in late 90s

A similar move was seen in Gujarat in 1998-1990 when the state police dedicated certain cells to “investigate cases of inter-community and inter-caste marriages.” The Gujarat police set up the special cells to ‘investigate’ inter-community marriages and was an act of the state that is directly violative of the fundamental rights of equality before the law, Right to Life with Dignity and Right to Freedom of Faith. This was followed by massive resistance and disenchantment of people and a spate of writ petitions were even filed by couples who had voluntarily entered into marriage before the Hon’ble Gujarat High Court.

Ms Teesta Setalvad had conducted an interview then with Gujarat’s Director General of Police, C.P. Singh in Ahmedabad, telephonically from Mumbai on October 6, 1998, wherein he claimed that allegations of forced inter–religious marriages and conversions are entirely baseless in most cases. When he was asked about who was responsible for the disturbing spate of attacks on minorities — Christians and Muslims — in Gujarat since February, 1998 he said, “It is individuals not organisations that can be arrested and nailed. But one thing was clear in the pattern of incidents. It was reportedly the activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal activists who were taking law into their own hands which posed a serious danger to peace in Gujarat. Many of the attacks on the minorities were after these organisations had whipped up local passions on mere allegations of conversions (by Christian missionaries) and allegedly forced inter–religious marriages, where again conversion was supposed to be the alleged motive.”

Under the garb of giving counselling to women estranged from their families due to being a part of inter-faith marriages, the State is setting up a surveillance mechanism that has the potential to disturb the state’s communal harmony, which has more or less remained unperturbed since the horrific Bombay riots of 1992-93.

Criticism

Many social organizations in the state opposed this decision of the government calling it ‘moral policing’ and infringement of people’s right to privacy. They have raised concern that this data will be misused to monitor potential inter-caste (in response to earlier GR) and interfaith marriages and to discourage the same with the apprehension that such couples could be harassed. They also state that the government is ignoring real issues being faced by women in the state and should instead focus on effective implementation of laws against domestic violence and crimes against women.

Maharashtra Mahila Parishad has said that “By Collecting data, the government intends to target particular communities”

Stree Mukti Andolan Sampark Samiti said that raised concerns that this data that will be collected will be used to monitor women and to shut any attempts at inter caste and inter faith marriages to keep the so-called “purity” of their castes and religions intact. The Samiti has termed this exercise of the Maharashtra government as ‘moral policing’ and one that has no legal sanction and has called for the cancellation of this GR.

State incentives for inter-faith marriages:

Several states, including Maharashtra have been moving up the path of social reforms attempting to encourage the idea of a caste less society, one that Dr. Babasaheb Aambedkar envisaged to liberate men and women from the shackles of regressive notions and critical religious texts. The State of Maharashtra had planned to provide special concessions such as fee waiver to the children born out of inter caste and inter-religion marriages. In 2018, the Social Justice Minister of Maharashtra had said that the couples where spouses are from different religions or castes have to face various problems, including social boycott and the threat of honour killing and hence, besides other aspects, a law in place will focus on what kind of protection can be given to the couples who are facing such threat. Honour is in the attempt to achieve that glory by encouraging States to come up with incentives to encourage inter faith unions. The Act and the Ordinance aims to take ten steps backward against the spirit of national unity and fraternity.

The Right to Love campaign run by Sushant Asha and Abhijit K in Maharashtra, both journalists cum social activists, helps inter religious couples facing opposition to avail protection by police, legal help to get marriage registered, counselling to deal with the mental pressure and also in finding job opportunities. With such laws in place impinging on your free will and right to conscience, the significance of the work and efforts put in by such individuals becomes even more stark.

Related:

M’tra Govt’s move to set up “Commission” on inter-caste, interfaith marriages strongly opposed by women’s groups, Opposition
Three States have demanded caste census, says MHA
State has no business to know if a person has changed religion: Deepak Gupta former SC Judge
Uttarakhand further amends its ‘anti-conversion law, maximum sentence up to 10 years 

The post Only Inter-faith marriages under Maha govt scanner; earlier GR was incorrect says Fadnavis appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image  Courtesy: Reuters
 
When Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Mr. Devendra Fadnavis announced “the biggest ever” farm loan waiver to distressed farmers in Maharashtra in 2017, one didn’t think that the number of farmer suicides would continue to pile up. But with government data revealing 219 farmer suicides in the state in July 2019 alone, with an average of 7 farmers killing themselves every day, we beg to ask if the loan waiver has proved to be fruitful to the agrarian community in any manner.

Close to 35,000 farmers descended on the streets of Maharashtra with a peaceful protest led by the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) in March last year with demands of a loan waiver, fair price for farm produce, the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee recommendations and compensation for hail-affected farmers among others. They were assured by the Maharashtra government of all their demands being met in six months of their demonstration. Today, the data collected by the government’s agrarian rehabilitation department discloses a grim number – 1542 farmer suicides in the first six months of 2019, as compared to 1487 in the same period last year.

P Sainath, a Ramon Magsaysay award winner, founding editor of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) and a staunch supporter of the Kisan Long March expressed intense distress at the growing number of farmer deaths and alleged that the official figures of farmer suicides in India had become highly unreliable along with the current condition being just more than an agrarian crisis.

While inconsistent rainfall has earned notoriety for being the number one reason for farmer deaths, ground sources show that it is actually backbreaking debt and the large dependence on private moneylenders by cash-ridden farmers that ties them in a vicious circle of paying exorbitant interest rates, a burden that they carry till their last breath.

Agricultural activist Vijay Jawandhiya explained that the cost of seeds had increased by Rs. 3000 per acre as farmers were expected to re-sow their seeds in drought affected regions. He said that though the cost of living and cost of production continued to rise, the real income of the farmer remained stagnant.

With Amravati and Aurangabad are the leading witnesses of unsound policy implementation and false promises taking their toll, the overall lack of empathy for the backbone of our nation by officials in high officesis certainly disappointing. As for the state-elections slated to be held in the next month, the major political parties are keen on wooing the rural voter by pledging to improve the plight of the farmer. Whether this, as always, remains a far-fetched promise or actually ends up being a beneficially implemented manifesto, today the life of the troubled farmer still seems to be hanging by a thread.
 

The post At least Seven Farmer Suicides a Day reveals Govt Data: Maharashtra appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: indiatogether.org

A Times of India report of February 27 reports that, following the Supreme Court order to clear forest land in possession of people whose title claims were rejected under the Forest (Rights) Act, 2006, the Maharashtragovernment has asked forest officials to free such land from the possession of illegal occupants.

On February 22, the state government issued orders seeking to know how many claims under community forest rights (CFRs) and individual forest rights (IFRs) under FRA were received and accepted, and how many rejected. This information will have to be submitted to APCCF (conservation) at Van Bhavan, the state forest department’s headquarters at Nagpur. TOI is in possession of the order signed by Sunil Pandre, an undersecretary in the forest and revenue department.

 APCCF (conservation) ShaileshTembhurnikar said, “We have asked all chief conservators of forests and deputy conservators in the state to take action in case of rejected claims. We have to also submit a weekly report on the issue to the government.”

Hearing a bunch of petitions by NGOs, the apex court on February 13 sought to know from the states how much forest land was unauthorizedly in possession of people whose claims have been rejected. An affidavit has to be filed by the states on action taken before July 12. The next hearing is slated for July 24. Fourteen days leader, stung by criticism the Central government had moved to get the SC Order modified. However during the prolonged hearing of the petition, the Central Government put up no defence of the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

According to the the affidavit filed by the tribal development department (TDD) of Maharashtra, 3,71,705 claims were received from scheduled tribes (STs) and other traditional forest dweller (OTFDs) after 2008, when the FRA implementation started.

 Of these claims, the district-level committee (DLC) rejected 23,054 claims, including that of 22,763 individuals and 291 CFRs. The total area lost to forest dwellers against rejected claims is 30,732 hectares, but over the years, 7,337 hectares have been vacated and another 23,395 hectares remain to be freed. Tribal activists are protesting against the recent SC ruling. This is not the first time the court has passed such an order. Three earlier SC orders have focused on rejected claims.
 

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