A phone, an OTP and a data operator: Unanswered questions about how a Mumbai Lok Sabha seat was won
A staff member of the Election Commission is under cloud for his alleged links with Eknath Shinde-led Sena, which won Mumbai North West by a mere 48 votes.
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On June 4, the contest for the Mumbai North-West parliamentary constituency went down to the wire.
The two factions of Shiv Sena had faced off against each other in what turned out to be the closest contest in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
After several rounds of counting, Ravindra Waikar of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena won the election by just 48 votes – the lowest victory margin in the general elections. He defeated Amol Kirtikar of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction.
However, several candidates raised doubts over the integrity of the counting process.
One aspect that was flagged by both Shiv Sena (UBT) and an independent candidate, Surinder Mohan Arora, was the unauthorised use of a mobile phone by Waikar’s brother-in-law, Mangesh Pandilkar, and his daughter Prajakta Waikar Mahale inside the counting centre on June 4.
The mobile phone belonged to Dinesh Gurav, a data entry operator with the Election Commission of India, who was present at the counting centre and who has been suspended by the commission. On June 13, Pandilkar and Gurav were booked by the Mumbai police for the unauthorised use of a phone.
On June 16, two Mumbai newspapers, Mid-Day and Lokmat, reported that Waikar’s brother-in-law used Gurav’s phone to generate a one-time password or OTP that...
