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The people’s newsroom

PoliticsMaharashtra

MNS starts statewide signature drive for CEC's resignation; Aaditya, Amit Thackeray booked

Raj Thackeray's party also wants the SIR scrapped in Maharashtra and a return to ballot papers. Mumbai Police have booked Aaditya and Amit Thackeray over Sunday's protest at Shivaji Park.

From the editorial desk · MumbaiPublished
MNS chief Raj Thackeray and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar (file photos)
MNS chief Raj Thackeray and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar (file photos)Photos: Bollywood Hungama / Wikimedia Commons; Sharma Dhawan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 and CC0

Key points

  1. The MNS began a signature campaign across Maharashtra demanding Gyanesh Kumar's resignation.
  2. The party also wants the SIR cancelled in Maharashtra and ballot papers as an alternative to EVMs.
  3. Police booked 25 people, including Aaditya and Amit Thackeray, over a protest outside Shivaji Park police station.

Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena on Monday began a signature campaign across Maharashtra demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, taking the opposition’s fight over the electoral rolls from Delhi to the streets of Mumbai and Pune.

The party called it a “Statewide Signature Campaign to Protect Democracy”. Its demands go beyond Kumar’s exit: complete cancellation of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Maharashtra, ballot papers as an alternative to EVMs, clean electoral rolls, and an election process run in consultation with all parties.

Tables went up at Shivaji Park in Dadar, outside Vashi station in Navi Mumbai and at Ambedkar Chowk in Pimpri. In Vashi, workers wore T-shirts reading “Gaddar Gyanesh, resign”. Navi Mumbai city president Gajanan Kale said the drive would be taken to every division of the city. Senior leader Nitin Sardesai has described it as the first phase of the party’s programme, with more to be announced before Dussehra.

Police action

The drive did not run everywhere. MNS leader Mahesh Bhanushali said Sakinaka police stopped it in the Chandivali constituency and removed the party’s banners. “We were conducting a signature campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar,” he said, suggesting the ruling party had leaned on the police.

Mumbai Police on Monday booked 25 people, including Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray and MNS leader Amit Thackeray, over Sunday’s protest outside Shivaji Park police station, where the two had demanded the release of detained protesters. The case alleges unlawful assembly and disobeying prohibitory orders.

“The BJP government is scared of Indian people, Indian citizens,” Aaditya Thackeray said on Sunday.