MNS chanting NaMo to dupe voters into backing its candidate?

BJP workers allege that MNS workers are approaching slum dwellers and people in posh localities, and telling them to vote for Deepak Paigude if they want to see Modi become prime minister

City-based booth level volunteers of Bharatiya Janata Party, who have been given the charge of door-to-door campaigning in various wards, have alleged that Maharashtra Navnirman Sena workers are misleading their traditional voters to vote for them by taking Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s name.

Opportunists? An MNS rally in the city. Pic/Mohan Patil

BJP workers are claiming that MNS leaders are asking poor and illiterate people in the slums of Vadarwadi and Ramoshiwadi in Gokhale Nagar to vote for their candidate Deepak Paigude, in the name of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Modi.

“Around 10-12 MNS workers have been making rounds of Ramoshiwadi, asking the residents to vote for Paigude. However, when some of the residents told them that they would like to see Modi as their PM, these MNS workers misguided and convinced them that if they vote for the MNS candidate, it would help Modi become prime minister,” said the city chief of BJP women’s wing, Mangal Dere.

She added that the voters in Ramoshiwadi and Vadarwadi are labourers and MNS workers were taking undue advantage of their ignorance.

BJP’s Karvenagar corporator Medha Kulkarni said that MNS workers were also fooling the voters in her ward. “They met the residents of Laxmi Narayan Nagar in Patwardhan Baug and distributed books to them. While doing this they told the residents to vote for their candidate if they wanted to see Modi as prime minister of the country,” Kulkarni said.

BJP knocks EC’s door
In Mumbai, BJP city chief Ashish Shelar and party’s war room in-charge Shrikant Bhartiya met chief election commissioner VS Sampath and election commissioner TN Malhotra, demanding action against MNS for misguiding voters in Modi’s name.
BJP’s Pune chief and Lok Sabha candidate Anil Shirole said that the party would not register a separate complaint against MNS. “Our leaders have already demanded action against MNS at state level.”

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