Pawar's poll speech: Court allows PIL to be turned into writ petition

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court today allowed a public interest litigation to be converted into a writ petition seeking action against NCP chief Sharad Pawar for ‘asking’ his followers, in the run-up to this year’s Lok Sabha polls, to vote twice. The PIL came up before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Mohit Shah, which asked the petitioner Hemant Patil to convert it into a simple writ petition within two weeks. [caption id=“attachment_1631269” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sharad Pawar. AFP[/caption] Meanwhile, Patil said he had filed a police complaint as two unidentified persons today asked him menacingly outside the court why he had taken up the matter. Pawar, addressing a gathering of `mathadi’ workers (head-loaders) in Thane prior to the polls, where he asked them to vote twice for his party, once at their native places in rural Maharashtra, and second time in the urban areas where they live, by erasing the indelible ink on fingers. The remark created a controversy and Pawar had to clarify later that he was only joking. The petition says the remark violated the election law, so action should be initiated against the NCP chief. PTI