127 voters registered at Navi Mumbai civic chief’s official address: MNS

Amid growing scrutiny of electoral records in Navi Mumbai, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has alleged that these 127 voters are recorded in voting roll number 300 of the Belapur assembly constituency

NAVI MUMBAI: How did 127 voters in Navi Mumbai come to have the municipal commissioner’s official residence listed as their registered address?

127 voters registered at Navi Mumbai civic chief’s official address: MNS

Amid growing scrutiny of electoral records in Navi Mumbai, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has alleged that these 127 voters are recorded in voting roll number 300 of the Belapur assembly constituency.

“Have EC officials lost their minds,” said Gajanan Kale, Navi Mumbai city president of the MNS. Kale claimed the names registered at the address were not local residents. “They are of non-Marathi speaking persons from other states. The EC needs to find out how this happened and delete the names, if they do not exist.”

Municipal Commissioner Kailas Shinde said he will raise the issue with the Thane collector’s office, which has the authority to delete the names, and ask for an inquiry into the matter.

This latest anomaly follows a series of troubling findings by the Raj Thackeray-led MNS, which earlier submitted a dossier of over 33,000 questionable entries in Belapur. These include more than 15,000 duplicate names and 18,403 entries the party claims are bogus – many bearing incomplete, incorrect or absurd addresses. These include a voter registered at “Sulabh Shouchalay” (a public toilet) in Juinagar; and 250 names listed with only “Palm Beach Road, Sanpada” as their address, without any building name or house number.

From toilets to official residences, bogus entries are everywhere,” remarked Kale. “We are witnessing a collapse of verification protocols,” he said, linking the findings in Navi Mumbai to a seemingly broader pattern across Maharashtra. “Our leader Raj Thackeray stated recently that around 97 lakh bogus and wrong entries are present in the voter lists of Maharashtra,” said Kale.

The Election Commission has confirmed that 4,000 to 5,000 duplicate names have been deleted so far, and that door-to-door verification and death certificate audits are underway.

The MNS has also flagged irregularities in Diwale Gaon, a fishing village in Belapur, where 50 deceased individuals remain on the electoral rolls despite repeated objections.

The issue of bogus voters in Navi Mumbai has drawn attention across party lines. BJP MLA Manda Mhatre had earlier alleged that election officials were pressured and bribed to include fake voters. Congress spokesperson Ravindra Sawant said the party had submitted a complaint to the Thane district collector last year, flagging over 76,000 duplicate names in the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation area – 41,556 in Airoli and nearly 35,000 in Belapur.