At least six candidates from Maharashtra’s Opposition alliance have filed petitions in the Bombay High Court against the victories of nominees from the ruling coalition in the state Assembly election held in November, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday.

Among those who have approached the High Court are Prashant Jagtap from Hadapsar in Pune, Mahesh Kothe from Solapur City North, Ajit Gavhane from Bhosari in Pune, Naresh Manera from Ovala Majiwada in Thane, Sunil Chandrakant Bhusara from Vikramgad in Palghar and Manohar Madhavi from Airoli in Navi Mumbai.

The candidates made allegations of fraud in voter lists and lack of transparency by the Election Commission in providing closed circuit television footage and poll-related documents. They also claimed that the winning candidates used religion to seek votes, distributed cash and misused electronic voting machines.

The petitions have demanded that the elections of the winning candidates from the ruling alliance, the Mahayuti, be declared void, The Indian Express reported. The petitioners from the Opposition coalition, the Maha Vikas Aghadi, have sought access to documents and records such as closed circuit camera footage and Form 17A and C, among others.

Form 17A refers to the register of voters, while Form 17C is a record of voter turnout in every polling station.

On November 23, the ruling Mahayuti alliance – comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Shiv Sena group led by Eknath Shinde and the Nationalist Congress Party faction led by Ajit Pawar – won 230 seats in the 288-member Assembly. The Maha Vikas Aghadi – comprising the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, the NCP faction headed by Sharad Pawar, and the Congress – won 46 seats.

A week later, the Congress’ Maharashtra unit claimed in a letter to the Election Commission that “several glaring discrepancies have been reported in the voter turnout data in the Assembly polls”.

On November 20, the day of polling in Maharashtra, a voter turnout of 58.22% was reported by 5 pm, according to Election Commission data. By 11.30 pm on the same day, the turnout went up to 65.02% and reached 66.05% by November 21.

The party also alleged that there was an “unprecedented increase” of around 47 lakh voters in the electoral rolls between July and November. The Opposition party also claimed that an “implausible” 76 lakh votes were cast in the last hour of polling.

However, On December 24, the Election Commission responded by saying that considering the voter turnout data obtained at 5 pm as the final count or as its closest approximation is “merely a misconception”.

It rejected the Congress’ allegations of arbitrary addition and deletion of voter names from the electoral rolls in Maharashtra. The Election Commission called the allegations “misleading and factually incorrect”.