Mumbai: Vinayak Raut, Shiv Sena (UBT) candidate, who was defeated by Narayan Rane (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency, has sent a legal notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) accusing his rival of unfair election practices. The BJP has rejected the allegation.
Raut alleged that even after the campaign came to a close BJP workers were continuing to mobilise voters and there was video evidence of the same.
Raut alleged that on May 16 Narayan Rane, his son Nitesh and other political workers Rane had lured voters by distributing money and also threatened them with dire consequences if they did not vote for BJP. This was also shot on videos.
In one of the videos, a BJP party worker Jadhav can be seen openly bribing the voters and asking them to vote for the BJP. A (dummy) EVM machine was also shown to voters and they were asked to press on the Lotus symbol.
They can be also seen showing the voters the EVM Machine and the symbol of lotus (flower) i.e. BJP's election symbol and asking to vote for BJP. From the video footage it can be seen that money for vote was directly being circulated and this is a serious contempt of various directions, guidelines and judgements given by the Supreme Court, the legal notice has added.
According to Section 123 of the Representation of People's Act, 1951 giving note for vote is described specifically as bribery. Such gratifications being given to the voters, by a candidate or his agent or by any other person representing the candidate or his election agent is corruption in the process of election, Raut has observed.
Many of Rane's supporters were going to people's houses with a demo EVM posing as government officials trying to educated the voters. But, they were, in fact, BJP workers who were campaigning for Narayan Rane. Such cheating by personation is an offence under Section 416 ofthe Indian Penal Code (IPC), Raut observed.
