Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Friday claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party has asked the Election Commission to delete the names of thousands of voters from the electoral rolls ahead of the Delhi Assembly election.
The polls are expected to take place in February. The Election Commission has not announced the election schedule yet.
Speaking at a press conference, the former chief minister said that the Aam Aadmi Party had investigated a few names that the BJP sought to delete in a particular constituency and found that several of them were Aam Aadmi Party supporters.
Kejriwal claimed that the BJP had submitted petitions to the poll panel seeking the deletion of voters’ names in Shahdara, Janakpuri, Laxmi Nagar and RK Puram, among other areas.
He claimed that the Election Commission was “secretly” taking action to delete the names.
The poll panel and the Hindutva party are yet to respond to Kejriwal’s claims.
In Shahdara alone, the BJP sought the deletion of 11,018 names from the electoral roll claiming that the voters had “either shifted or passed away”, Kejriwal alleged.
The Aam Aadmi Party cross-checked 500 names on that application, he said, adding that 372 of them were still living in the area. He added that the majority of them were supporters of his party.
“If you get 6% of votes cut from one Assembly constituency then what is the point of holding elections?” he asked.
Kejriwal claimed that the BJP had submitted applications for the deletion of over 6,200 names in Janakpuri and 4,500 in RK Puram.
The BJP and the Election Commission were “openly snatching” people’s right to vote, Kejriwal alleged, adding that this was a “threat to democracy”. He urged the poll panel to upload information about the BJP’s applications and the deletion of any voters’ names on its website.
Kejriwal’s allegations came days after Chief Minister Atishi claimed that the BJP had pressured officials to remove the names of Aam Aadmi Party supporters from electoral rolls to manipulate the outcome of upcoming Assembly polls.
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 on November 26.
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.
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