Mumbai, Oct. 16 -- Maharashtra's top opposition leaders, including Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, on Wednesday reiterated their demand that the upcoming elections to local bodies across the state be postponed until the alleged anomalies in the voter list are corrected. Senior opposition leaders, including the Thackeray cousins, Balasaheb Thorat and Vijay Wadettiwar from the Congress, and Jayant Patil from the NCP(SP), held a joint meeting with Maharashtra's chief electoral officer (CEO) S Chockalingam and the state election commissioner (SEC) Dinesh Waghmare on Wednesday, following an inconclusive meeting with Chockalingam on Tuesday. During Wednesday's meeting, the opposition leaders submitted a letter pointing out various anomalies in the voter lists and demanded they be corrected before the local body polls, which are expected to begin next month. The anomalies included duplication of voters, voters without addresses, over 180 voters in a single home, and a 124-year-old voter whose father's age was listed as 40. "We will not accept autocracy in the name of democracy," said Uddhav Thackeray, at a media briefing after the meeting. "We firmly told them that there should be no election without correction in the voters' list. We will wait for a couple of days for a response from the CEO and SEC, and then decide on the further course of action." While leaders from almost all major opposition parties were present for Wednesday's meeting, a notable absentee was NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar. The veteran leader had made it a point to be part of the Opposition delegation to meet Chockalingam on Tuesday, but left for Pune on Wednesday for a scheduled programme. The recently reunited Thackeray cousins, Uddhav and Raj, were again seen together on Wednesday and led the Opposition's attack on the election officials. Opposition leaders told reporters that they questioned the process of including and deleting voters' names during the meeting, while providing several examples of anomalies in the voter list from various parts of the state. They also taunted the CEO and the SEC, asking them not to work for the ruling parties. Uddhav Thackeray, meanwhile, insisted on the use of either the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system or ballot papers in the high-profile Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation polls. Raj Thackeray told the officials that voters and political parties are the two main parts of the election process, and the election commission only conducts the polls. He also expressed displeasure over the alleged anomalies in the voter lists and questioned why such complaints arose only after 2014-when the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. "There were no (local body) elections (in Maharashtra) for the last five years, so there's nothing wrong if it is delayed by more than six months. But local body elections should be conducted only after the correction in the voter list. Postpone the elections to correct the voter list," Raj said. The MNS chief also showed pages from the voter lists of 2022 and 2025 and pointed out that there were photos of voters in 2022, but they had been removed from the voter list page in 2025. "How can there be transparency in polling?" he said. Uddhav claimed he told the CEO and the SEC that they were behaving like puppets. "Both officials told us that they will look into the matter raised by us regarding anomalies in the voter list. We will wait for two days for a decision from the CEO and the SEC. I also told them that if they don't want to correct the list, then instead of conducting elections, they should directly declare the winners," the Shiv Sena (UBT) chief said. Jayant Patil, who showed various examples of anomalies in the voter lists from several constituencies, said, "They have no answer to our complaints and evidence. I also expressed doubt that some third party is controlling the websites of the election commission and manipulating the data of voters." Congress leader Thorat claimed that the Opposition had flagged irregularities in the voter list before last year's assembly elections as well, but no corrective action was taken. "The SEC told us that removing objectionable names is not the commission's responsibility. If that is the stance, then how can the upcoming local body polls be expected to be transparent and honest?" he said. Reacting to the allegations, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that such errors have been there in the voter list for decades and questioned why the Opposition is crying foul on it now. "We also want free and fair elections, and we support the correction in the voter list. But the opposition is using it to make allegations and unwanted demands. They don't even know what to demand of whom? That's why NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar did not participate in today's meeting," he said. Chockalingam and Wagmare declined to react to the Opposition's allegations....