AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, alongside senior party leaders, appealed to the Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday to stop the “deletion” of voters’ names from the electoral rolls ahead of the upcoming Delhi elections.
Kejriwal alleged the BJP was orchestrating a conspiracy to remove voters, mostly from marginalised communities, including Dalits, Scheduled Castes and Purvanchalis, from electoral rolls.
He claimed the EC gave them several assurances, including that no largescale deletions would occur before the elections, and that strict action would be taken against those filing questionable requests to delete names of voters.
Responding to the accusations, the Delhi BJP said AAP is looking for excuses to cover up its defeat in the elections, and the campaign to get illegal voter names removed will continue.
“The BJP is snatching away the rights of people as Indian citizens by removing their votes. BJP workers have given applications to remove names of thousands of voters in many Assembly constituencies,” Kejriwal alleged.
“When you delete the vote of a legitimate person, you are snatching away the basis of citizenship and the right to live in this country,” he added.
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva hit back, saying AAP and Kejriwal are in “panic” due to their impending defeat. “Kejriwal knows he is losing the battle and is looking for excuses to cover up his defeat. The panic of Kejriwal and AAP clearly shows that these illegal votes were the political strength of their party,” he said.
“No matter how much noise Kejriwal and AAP make, the BJP will continue to run a campaign against votes registered using dead people, illegal infiltrators and fake addresses,” he added.
Kejriwal claimed they have submitted 3,000 pages of evidence “showing how the BJP is conspiring to delete voters’ names on a mass scale”. “Our demand was that this vote deletion should be stopped as the EC has just done summary revision and FIRs should be filed against those who applied for vote deletion,” he said.
Calling the meeting successful, Kejriwal expressed gratitude to the EC for its prompt action. “If all the assurances given by the EC are fulfilled, I think the people of Delhi need not worry about vote deletion,” he added.
The AAP delegation included CM Atishi, Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha, as well as senior party leaders Jasmine Shah, Pankaj Gupta, and Reena Gupta.
