Maharashtra village cancels ‘repoll’ plan after police intervention

Villagers in Maharashtra's Markadwadi village abandon re-election demand with ballot papers after police intervention, following MLA's defeat.

Villagers from Maharashtra’s Markadwadi, a small village in the Malshiras tehsil of Solapur district, who insisted on a re-election with ballot papers relented on Tuesday (December 3, 2024) and gave up their plan after police intervention.

According, newly elected MLA from Nationalist Congress Party (SP), Uttamrao Jankar, who defeated BJP’s Ram Satpute by 13,147 votes in the State assembly polls, the move was dropped after intervention from officials and the police.

Heavy police security was deployed on Tuesday morning at the village.

Earlier, the villagers expressed ‘distrust’ over the ‘functioning’ of electronic voting machines (EVMs) in their village during the recent Maharashtra State Assembly election after Mr. Jankar demanded that a voting exercise using ballot paper be conducted as he had failed to get a lead in the village of Markadwadi. He was of the view that the village has his most loyal voters, who had consistently given him a lead in the village in past elections.

However, a BJP worker and supporter of Mr. Satpute, who lost the polls, had his own view. “Satpute got the votes on merit. He brought funds to this village, and people voted on that basis. It has nothing to do with EVMs.”