Dipke alleged that voter deletions had helped the BJP win states it could not have won even at the height of the “Narendra Modi wave”. He claimed that 13 crore voters had been deleted from electoral rolls over two years and alleged that the appointment of Kumar shortly before the 2024 Lok Sabha election was intended to widen the BJP-led NDA’s electoral advantage.
He also alleged that 40 lakh voters were added to Maharashtra’s electoral rolls ahead of the 2024 Assembly election, which he described as evidence of “vote theft”. The BJP and Election Commission have rejected allegations of electoral manipulation.
Dipke cited other alleged instances of voter deletions, including in Delhi, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, claiming that deletions had affected the electoral prospects of opposition leaders. These claims were made at the rally and were not independently established there.
Taking a swipe at the argument that opposition parties had also won elections in states such as Telangana, Karnataka and Jharkhand, Dipke said: “When the match is fixed, not all balls are no-balls and not all catches are dropped.”
He also accused the BJP of attempting to weaken regional parties, citing the political upheavals involving the Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra. He described the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena as a “shell company”.
The CJP chose Maharashtra as the starting point of its campaign, Dipke said, because the alleged electoral irregularities had first become particularly visible in the state. The party has announced plans to take its campaign to other cities, including Goa, Bengaluru and Kolkata, before another mobilisation in Delhi.
The protest drew support from several prominent figures from the film and cultural world. Actors Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, filmmakers Vishal Bhardwaj and Hansal Mehta, singer-composer Vishal Dadlani and Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, were among those associated with the demonstration.
