MUMBAI: Refusing to accept defeat in the Palghar bypoll, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday again raised concerns about the malfunctioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) on polling day and said that the same had marred democracy. He said that the Sena would contest future polls independently. The reaction from Uddhav came after the Sena candidate lost the prestigious Palghar bypoll to the BJP candidate.

“I do not believe in this defeat. This is not a defeat because we have seen public anger. It was a close fight and out of 8.87 lakh voters, 6.97 lakh have refused to go with the BJP. The BJP got a very close win,” Uddhav told reporters at Sena Bhavan Thursday evening. On the malfunctioning of EVMs, Uddhav held the election commission (EC) responsible and questioned why the machines had been bought from Surat. “I am concerned about the EVM malfunctioning. This has marred democracy. The EVMs stopped functioning, the voters were frustrated, and could not vote. They were very upset with the election commission. I wonder if we should contest the elections or not in the backdrop of EVM malfunctioning,” he said.

Pointing at other factors that brought victory for the BJP, Uddhav said that the person who was caught distributing money was the first to celebrate after the BJP win. “We caught a BJP worker distributing money to voters. But no action was taken against him. On Thursday, he was the first to celebrate after BJP’s win. BJP candidate Rajendra Gavit asked for increasing voting timings and I have the letter. The collector declared voting on polling day and the next day, the number increased by one lakh votes. How did they get a greater number the next day?” Uddhav questioned.

“We had said that we will contest the polls alone. We did in Palghar and gave the BJP a tough fight,” he said.