SP chief Akhilesh Yadav sends ‘evidence’ of voter list tampering to EC
Former UP chief minister sent the evidence through email, along with proof of the names of SP supporters that were allegedly removed from the voters’ list
Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday submitted the “evidence”, as asked by the Election Commission, to substantiate his allegations regarding the removal of names of party supporters from the voters’ list on a large scale in the 2022 UP Assembly polls.
The former UP chief minister sent the evidence through email, along with proof of the names of SP supporters that were allegedly removed from the voters’ list, a party release issued here said.
The SP chief also sent the photocopy of complaints made to the chief electoral officer, Lucknow and the chief election commissioner, New Delhi in connection with the removal of names as also the compilation of media reports, the release said.
In a six-page letter in Hindi, Yadav wrote: “Evidence and documents that could be gathered in a week - about the wrongfully deducted names from the voters’ lists - have been sent (to you). The remaining ones about bypolls 2022 will be sent.”
On October 27, the EC had asked the SP chief to substantiate the allegations with evidence by November 10.
“We have sent the letter and evidence through email and registered post today,” said Rajendra Chaudhary, secretary and state spokesperson, SP. According to Chaudhary, Akhilesh Yadav also demanded the inclusion of a representative of the Samajwadi Party at the time of investigation into the points raised by him in the reply.
Yadav also stated in the letter that a demand was made to investigate the information received from activists, supporters, citizens and media reports from different districts about depriving voters of voting, but no probe was done.
Last month, the EC had asked SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to substantiate his allegation against the poll authority of mass deletion of voters from Yadav and Muslim communities from the electoral rolls of every assembly seat during the assembly elections held earlier this year.
It is learnt that the commission had told Yadav that it had not received any complaint about the deletion of names of 20,000 voters from the electoral rolls of any constituency. The commission had also said that its district and state electoral officers had not flagged any such issue of mass deletion of voters’ names from electoral rolls.
The poll authority said one SP candidate had complained about the deletion of names of 10,000 voters from the electoral rolls in Aliganj assembly constituency.
The commission said on enquiry, the chief electoral officer of UP had found the allegations with regard to the Aliganj assembly seat to be “baseless, unsubstantiated and factually incorrect.”
Following the October 27 EC letter to Yadav, the party on October 31 asked all its 2022 candidates (winners and losers) and district officer-bearers to gather evidence of “wrongfully struck off names from voters’ lists” and also the photocopies of complaints that were made to returning officers. The party had set November 3 as the deadline for the party’s 2022 assembly polls candidates to submit the documents to the party headquarters “so that they could be sent to the EC in time.” With PTI inputs