Substantiate claims on deletion of voter names, says EC to Akhilesh Yadav

The Election Commission has asked Samajwadi Party 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 Uttar Pradesh elections this year.

In a letter to Yadav, the Commission has asked him to submit by November 10 assembly-wise evidence of the wrongful deletions and complaints filed by the Samajwadi Party (SP) with the district and state electoral authorities in this regard.

Addressing a party meet last month, Yadav had accused the poll panel of "deleting" the names of Muslim and Yadav votes in every assembly constituency.

It is learnt that the Commission had told Yadav that it had not received any complaint about deletion of names of 20,000 voters from the electoral rolls of any constituency.

The Commission also said that its district and state electoral officers had not flagged any such issue of mass deletion of voters' names from electoral rolls in every assembly constituency.

The poll authority said one Samajwadi Party candidate had complained about deletion of names of 10,000 voters from the electoral rolls in Aligang assembly constituency.

The Commission said on enquiry, the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh had found the allegations with regard to the Aligang assembly seat to be "baseless, unsubstantiated and factually incorrect".

Given the legal provisions for preparation of electoral roll and safeguards against wrongful deletions, the SOPs laid by the Commission leave no scope for mass deletion of the names of bonafide electors from the electoral roll.

The Commission said suo-moto deletion of names of voters is strictly prohibited during an election year.

It noted that each and every deletion is made after following due procedure of law by giving ample opportunity to the person concerned.