Former Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan has raised serious allegations of electoral malpractice, claiming over 56,000 duplicate voters across six constituencies led to his defeat despite an increased vote share.
- Prithviraj Chavan alleges 56,118 duplicate voters across six Maharashtra constituencies.
- In Karad South alone, 21,132 individuals were allegedly registered 48,741 times.
- The former CM claims a strategic push by the BJP to inflate voter lists by 10% per booth.
- An election petition has been filed in the Bombay High Court to challenge the results.
Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and current Union Minister Prithviraj Chavan has ignited a political storm by alleging widespread electoral fraud in the 2024 Assembly elections. In an exclusive revelation, Chavan claimed that a meticulous analysis of voter lists revealed a staggering 56,118 duplicate voters across his own Karad South constituency and five neighboring areas.
The veteran leader expressed a deep sense of betrayal, questioning the integrity of the Election Commission of India (ECI). According to Chavan, the discrepancy is not merely clerical but a systemic effort to manipulate outcomes. He highlighted a shocking statistic: in his constituency alone, 21,132 voters were registered 48,741 times, with some individuals appearing up to 15 times under the same name and parentage but with different EPIC numbers.
To illustrate the gravity of the situation, Chavan cited specific examples, such as a 29-year-old woman and an 18-year-old girl appearing twice, and individuals like 'Patil Sachin Shivaji' appearing 15 times. He argued that such repetitions are statistically impossible in a natural demographic setting, comparing the absurdity to the idea of having multiple versions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a single constituency.
Why This Matters
BozokMedia analysis shows that this allegation strikes at the very heart of democratic legitimacy. If a candidate's vote share increases—as it did for Chavan, who grew his tally from 92,296 in 2019 to 1,00,150 in 2024—yet they still lose, it suggests a systemic inflation of the opponent's numbers. This creates a dangerous precedent where 'voter engineering' could override actual public sentiment.
The transition of voter lists from machine-readable formats to PDF-only documents significantly hinders the ability of candidates to conduct independent audits of electoral rolls.
Chavan has directly linked this surge to instructions allegedly given by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in September 2024, where party workers were reportedly told to increase votes by 10% at every booth. Chavan noted that while the average annual voter growth rate in India is 0.9%, the sudden spike in Maharashtra during a five-month window suggests an artificial inflation of the rolls.
The process of uncovering this data was arduous. Chavan explained that because the ECI provides lists in PDF format, his team had to manually convert thousands of pages into Excel sheets to perform the analysis. He has since submitted this evidence to the District Collector and filed a formal petition in the Bombay High Court.
| Metric | 2019 Election | 2024 Election |
|---|---|---|
| Prithviraj Chavan's Votes | 92,296 | 1,00,150 |
| Vote Growth | - | +9,130 (approx. 10%) |
| Outcome | Won/Competitive | Lost |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Why did Prithviraj Chavan raise this issue in 2026?
He explained that the lack of machine-readable data from the ECI forced his team to spend significant time manually converting PDF lists to Excel for analysis.
Q2: What action has been taken regarding these duplicates?
The data has been submitted to the District Collector for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) and a petition has been filed in the Bombay High Court.
