Election Commission on Thursday asked Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to submit proof to substantiate his allegation made at public fora that the poll body deliberately deleted names of voters from Yadav and Muslim communities to the tune of 20,000 in almost all Uttar Pradesh Assembly constituencies, at BJP's behest.
The ECI has asked Akhilesh to furnish details to the Commission by November 10, 2022, so that necessary action can be taken. Yadav has been asked to submit Assembly-wise data of deletions of such magnitude.
Yadav has been asked to submit Assembly-wise data of deletions of such magnitude to the Commission and also to provide proof for Assembly Constituency-wise numbers and names of alleged wrongful deletions.
He has been asked for supporting evidence of such electors whose names have allegedly been deleted wrongfully. Akhilesh Yadav has been asked for the details of any specific complaint of deletions of voters of such magnitude made by his party with either any of the District Election Officer (DEO) or CEO, UP during the process of SSR or general elections in 2022 to Legislative assemblies of UP.
It is pertinent to note that Commission has neither received any complaint of mass deletions to the tune of 20,000 from any AC nor has any such issue been brought to the notice of district/state level electoral authorities during/after General Elections to Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh 2022.
Only one complaint regarding the deletion of a list of around 10,000 electors was made to District Election Officer by a candidate of the Samajwadi Party from 103 -Aliganj Assembly Constituency. On enquiry by the CEO of Uttar Pradesh, the allegations were found to be baseless, unsubstantiated and factually incorrect.
Given the legal provisions for the preparation of the Electoral Roll and safeguards against wrongful deletions, the SOPs laid by the Commission leaves no scope for mass deletion of the names of bonafide electors from the Electoral Roll.
( With inputs from ANI )
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