Kejriwal leads AAP leaders to CEC over ‘voter removal’, seeks no further deletion

Cong. too expresses concern, sees conspiracy to ‘cut count of voters from particular community’; BJP says ruling party in ‘panic’ in anticipation of defeat in the upcoming Delhi Assembly election

An Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) delegation led by national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday met Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, urging him to “safeguard the integrity of the electoral process” by disallowing further deletion of voters ahead of the Delhi Assembly poll.

The Congress too expressed concern over the issue, with its former Delhi vice-president Chattar Singh demanding a probe by the Election Commission (EC) into the “conspiracy to reduce the number of voters from a particular community”.

Delhi’s ruling AAP has been raising the issue for quite some time, with its leaders alleging that names of voters are being deleted from the electoral roll in the party strongholds at the “behest of the BJP”.

However, the BJP dismissed the allegation, with its Delhi chief Virendra Sachdeva saying the AAP delegation’s meeting with Mr. Kumar shows the “panic” in the ruling party in anticipation of defeat in the election due in February next year.

However, Mr. Kejriwal, a former Delhi Chief Minister, accused the BJP of “orchestrating a conspiracy” to remove voters in the Capital, especially those belonging to marginalised communities.

“We submitted 3,000 pages of proof to the CEC showing how the BJP has been conspiring to delete votes,” Mr. Kejriwal told reporters.

“We submitted how, in Shahdara, a BJP worker gave a list of 11,800 voters for deletion and how the Election Commission worked on this silently,” he added.

Mr. Kejriwal said the CEC assured them that no mass deletion of votes would take place and if they decide to delete any name, a field inquiry will conducted by the area booth-level officer (BLO), who will be accompanied by representatives from different political parties.

He said Mr. Kumar told them that if anyone makes more than five entries for the deletion of voters, the SDM concerned will carry out a field inquiry.

‘Nefarious designs’

Former Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia and Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha also accused the BJP of submitting bulk applications to remove voters’ names from the electoral rolls fearing defeat in the upcoming election.

Mr. Sisodia alleged that the BJP is using “nefarious means” such as submitting mass applications to delete names of 22,000 voters from the electoral rolls in seven Assembly seats.

“These applications target people who have lived at the same address for years. BJP workers are actively involved in getting thousands of votes deleted in various constituencies,” he added.

The Delhi BJP chief equated Mr. Kejriwal with a “desperate commander giving excuses to hide his party’s imminent defeat in the Assembly election”. Mr. Sachdeva said whether it is BJP workers or common people, “everyone is actively working to eliminate fake votes from their respective areas”.

“Wherever people find information about votes being cast by Rohingya, Bangladeshis, or other infiltrators, they are filing objections themselves,” he said in a statement.

‘Statistics baffling’

Meanwhile, the former Delhi Congress vice-president said it was baffling that while the number of voters in the Capital increased by more than 10% between 2018 and 2020, the increase in the past four years has been just 3.06%.

In 2008, Delhi had about 1.07 crore voters and their number increased to over 1.47 crore by 2020, Mr. Singh said in a party release, adding that the number increased to just over 1.53 crore in the past four years. “After assessing the data of 70 Assemblies, we found that 17 segments reported a decrease in voters,” he added, demanding a probe into the issue.

Published - December 12, 2024 01:06 am IST