Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday alleged widespread irregularities in the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the state.
The former chief minister demanded greater transparency in the process and action against persons responsible for the alleged irregularities.
Yadav said at a press conference that he will ask the Election Commission to clarify under which rules should first information reports be registered in the matter.
He asked why the Election Commission had not taken action so far and added that the Samajwadi Party will raise the matter in the Assembly, where the Budget Session is underway.
The Samajwadi Party chief demanded that the process of removing voters from the electoral rolls be initiated only by booth-level officers and not by others, PTI reported. Details such as the booth number, Assembly constituency and the name of the person who submitted Form 7s should be made public, he added.
Form 7 of the Election Commission is the official application used to object to the inclusion of a name or to request the deletion of a name from an existing electoral roll.
Names of SP supporters being removed, alleges Yadav
Yadav alleged that the names of Samajwadi Party supporters were being deleted unlawfully and that the poll panel had given the party “very little” information, PTI reported.
He claimed that in Sakaldiha town, the names of 16 voters had been deleted after allegedly forged signatures were submitted in the name of a Samajwadi Party MLA. He alleged that an analysis of the voters would show that they belonged to the “PDA”, or pichhda (backward), Dalit and alpsankhyak (minority) communities.
Yadav alleged that a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party had claimed that three lakh voters had been deleted in Kannauj and that more were to be removed in other districts. Yadav is the MP from Kannauj.
Yadav’s remark was an apparent reference to a claim made by former BJP MP Subrata Pathak in December.
The former chief minister stated that while the Samajwadi Party had filed 47 Form 7s in the state, the BJP had submitted 1,729 and “unknown persons” had 1.2 lakh applications. These unknown persons were linked to the Hindutva party, he claimed.
Uttar Pradesh is among the 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission is conducting the special intensive revision of the voter rolls. The exercise had begun on October 27.
The draft roll in the state was published on January 6. It showed that the names of 2.8 crore voters had been removed – the largest number of deletions among the 12 states and Union Territories.
The deletions included 2.1 crore persons who had shifted from their registered residences, 46.2 lakh voters who had died and 25.4 lakh duplicate entries.
The names of 12.5 crore voters out of the total 15.4 crore electors had been retained in the draft roll.
The deletions from the draft roll are provisional and citizens can object to their names being removed from the list. The poll panel had on February 6 extended the deadline to March 6 for voters to file their claims and objections.
The deadline for hearings and verification was extended to March 27 from February 27. The final electoral roll in the state will be published on April 10.
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!