Cast Fake Votes if People Are Absent On Polling Day: BJP’s Sanghmitra Maurya Stokes Controversy

Badaun Lok Sabha constituency will vote in the third phase of the general election on April 23.

New Delhi: Sanghmitra Maurya , BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate for Badaun and daughter of Uttar Pradesh minister Swami Prasad Maurya has courted a fresh controversy by encouraging her supporters to indulge in ‘fake’ voting in ongoing Lok Sabha elections 2019. Addressing party workers at an election meeting, Maurya asked them to cast votes of those not present on the polling day.

“Not a single vote should go in vain and if some are absent, then it is common everywhere that fake vote is cast… if you get a chance, do take advantage of it… do not do it, but if you get a chance… try to take the real voters to cast their votes but in case… then something can be done in a hidden manner,” Maurya can be heard saying in a video which has gone viral on social media.

(Full coverage on Lok Sabha elections 2o19)

Sanghmitra Maurya, however, claimed the video was cropped and edited. “I will never encourage anyone to do farzi (fake) work. What I have said is being shown wrongly. It has been cropped and has been edited. What I have said is that those absent on polling day must be talked to,” she told news agency ANI.

District Magistrate Dinesh Kumar Singh, when contacted, said he was not aware of the matter but would look into the claims. Maurya, had earlier hit the headlines by saying that she would become a goon if anyone tried to bully the people of Badaun. “If someone resorts to ‘goondaism’ during the election, you should not be afraid because I am a bigger goon and will guard your self-respect,” she had said.

BJP’s Maurya will take on Samajwadi Party lawmaker Dharmendra Yadav in Badun Lok Sabha constituency which will vote on Tuesday, April 23.