NEW DELHI: Shiv Sena UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday said that winning MLAs of his party will not take the oath on the first day of Maharashtra assembly special session. Alleging misuse of EVMs during the Maharashtra assembly election, Thackeray said that he “has doubts.”
Talking to reporters, Aaditya Thackeray said that his party has “decided that our (Shiv Sena UBT) winning MLAs will not take oath” on the first day of the Maharashtra assembly session to protest the misuse of EVMs during the election.
“If this was the mandate of the people, people would have been happy and celebrated it, but people did not celebrate this victory anywhere. We have doubts about EVM,” he added.
Thackeray further said that his party has boycotted the oath-taking ceremony as “democracy is being murdered by the use of EVMs.” “This (the results of the Maharashtra Assembly elections) is not the mandate of the public it is the mandate of EVM and the Election Commission of India,” he added.
Thackeray’s announcement came amid the commencement of state assembly special session, where chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy chief ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar took oath as members of Maharashtra legislative assembly.
Earlier today, Fadnavis along with Shinde and Pawar paid tribute to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, at the Vidhan Bhavan complex in Mumbai on the first day of the special assembly session.
Aaditya Thackeray and several Shiv Sena UBT party workers also marked their presence during the event.