Delhi Chief Minister Atishi on Tuesday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre had pressured officials to remove the names of Aam Aadmi Party supporters from electoral rolls to manipulate the outcome of upcoming Assembly polls in the national capital, The Hindu reported.
Atishi wrote to Delhi’s Chief Secretary Dharmendra, seeking an investigation into the matter by a panel of retired officers or former High Court or Supreme Court judges.
“If any officer is found guilty of vitiating the free and fair election, the strongest possible action must be taken against him,” she said.
The chief minister named a district magistrate, accusing him of instructing booth-level polling officers and assistant electoral roll officers to remove the names of about 20,000 voters from the voter list in each constituency under his jurisdiction.
The polls are expected to take place in February. The Election Commission has not announced the election schedule yet.
Earlier on Tuesday, Atishi said at a press conference that the BJP was allegedly using manipulative tactics out of fear of defeat in the Assembly polls. She urged all booth-level officers and assistant electoral roll officers to record any verbal instructions they receive on their phones to delete the names of voters.
Atishi also alleged that the Union government had plotted a “major conspiracy” by transferring 29 sub-divisional magistrates and additional district magistrates on October 28.
“They were transferred on October 28, and afterwards, officials were ordered to delete votes on a large scale,” the chief minister alleged. She added that the amended Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Act empowers the Centre to shuffle Delhi government officials through the lieutenant-governor.
Responding to the allegations, BJP’s Delhi chief Virendra Sachdeva said that the remarks by Atishi reflect her “sense of impending defeat”. “AAP’s internal survey has revealed that its defeat is inevitable,” he claimed.
Sachdeva said that most members of the Opposition INDIA bloc, which the Aam Aadmi Party is a part of at the national level, had been demoralised by “continuous electoral defeats”, The Hindu reported.
“So far, we have seen parties like the Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) and the RJD [Rashtriya Janata Dal] questioning the Election Commission’s impartiality and the reliability of electoral voting machines after facing electoral losses,” said Sachdeva. “Today, AAP has begun indulging in a similar rhetoric, which is regrettable.”
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