Nana Patole tells Fadnavis: impeach Maha chief Election Commissioner or else Congress will

Senior Congress MLA Nana Patole asked the Fadnavis government on Wednesday to initiate an impeachment motion against Maharashtra’s Chief Election Commissioner, or else the Congress itself would do so on the very first day of the forthcoming winter session of the Maharashtra state assembly.

“The law is the same for everyone, whether it is for a Supreme Court judge or an Election Commissioner. They cannot go against the Constitution. We have proposed to the Maharashtra state government that it should initiate an impeachment motion against the Chief Election Commissioner of the state under Article 243. If the state government does not bring a motion, we will bring an impeachment motion against the State Election Commissioner on the very first day of the forthcoming winter session,” Patole told media persons here on Wednesday.

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The Congress leader raised questions about the conduct of local civic body elections by the Maharashtra Election Commissioner.

“The state government may think that our role is political, but should we call it if the criminal is released after committing the crime? In fact, the role of the Election Commission itself is political. If the state government does not bring impeachment, it will be revealed that the Election Commission and the state government are in cahoots with each other,” Congress leader Patole said.

“In Gadchiroli, the Election Commission itself asked a tehsildar to change the battery of the EVM. So will EVMs be safe for 18 days? We have serious doubts,” Nana Patole said.

He also demanded that the forthcoming winter session of the Maharashtra state assembly must be held for a month.

“Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis himself comes from Vidarbha. When he was in the opposition, he used to demand that the winter session should last for two months. Now, our demand is that the winter session should last for one month and not two months. Last time, the winter session lasted only for a few days,” Patole said.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan alleged on Wednesday that the Fadnavis government is responsible for the delay in vote counting and the release of poll results of the local body elections.

“Due to the court order, local body election results have been delayed till December 21. Due to this, ballot boxes will be in godowns for the next 16 days. This period is enough for the government to tamper with them,” Chavan said.

“The order by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has exposed how incompetently the Election Commission is working. By postponing the counting of votes for so long, the public’s trust in the entire election process is being eroded. When this case began in court, government lawyers were expected to present their case effectively. If the government had made a proper argument, the election results would not have been postponed from December 3 to December 21. But the government failed to do so, and now the Election Commission is being blamed,” Chavan said.

“For the last 10 years, the BJP deliberately ignored local body elections. This is a plot to end democracy, and dictatorship has begun. If the people do not wake up, it will simply continue like this. The government and the Election Commission are getting away with blaming each other. Was the government sleeping when the case was being heard in the court?” Chavan told media persons in Satara.