Kejriwal: Our voters deleted from electoral rolls; AAP is buying votes, says BJP

He alleged that BJP representatives submitted applications to ECI for removing thousands of legitimate voters, especially from areas such as Shahdara, Janakpuri, Sangam Vihar and R K Puram.

Accompanied by senior party leaders, Kejriwal presented documents purportedly from BJP’s booth level agents (BLAs) that listed over 11,000 shifted or deceased voters of Shahdara. He said similar lists of other constituencies would be shared soon. Upon randomly verifying 500 voters on BJP’s list who the party claimed had moved out of Shahdara or were deceased, the AAP found that 372 people were still living at their listed addresses, the party national convener said.

“Nearly 75 per cent of the applications filed by the BJP could be false,” he added, claiming that most of the names targeted for deletion were AAP supporters. He asserted that this could impact Shahdara’s voter rolls. “BJP wants to delete 11,000 voters — 6 per cent of the constituency’s electorate, nearly double the margin by which we won last time,” he said. In the 2020 polls, AAP secured Shahdara by a margin of 5,294 votes.

However, Shahdara District Magistrate Rishita Gupta refuted AAP’s allegations terming them “factually incorrect”.

“Only 494 form 7 have been received in Shahdara Assembly constituency since October 29. Hence, the claim that 11,018 form 7 were filed by the BJP in the past month is factually incorrect,” Gupta said.

But the AAP hit back stating that the claims of the Shahdara DM were misleading. “After receiving such a malafide request, the AERO (assistant electoral registration officer) initiated the process of deletion — by issuing a letter dated November 22 to its AERO and BLOs… They were asked to commence the process of verification and subsequent deletion,” the AAP stated.

An analysis of ECI data shows that 263 names have been deleted and 2,442 names added in Shahdara. Meanwhile, Kejriwal claimed that there are high deletion requests in other constituencies, including Janakpuri (6,247), Sangam Vihar (5,862), and RK Puram (4,285), too. The AAP also presented residents who claimed their names had been removed without notice.

Mahfooz Ali, a Jhilmil resident, said, “I have been voting here for 15 years. I learned my name was removed after AAP workers came to check.” Shambu Kumar from Shahdara said, “AAP volunteers informed me that my entire family’s names were cut. We’ve been living here for years.”

Kejriwal said, “We demand that no votes be deleted in Delhi after October 18 until elections. If an eligible voter is deprived of their right to vote, that is unacceptable.” October 18 was the last date of house-to-house verification and removal of discrepancies through booth level officers. Final publication of electoral rolls for polls will be held on January 6 next year. The AAP chief also announced plans to take legal action against BJP officials responsible for filing these deletion requests.

Hitting back, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva accused CM Atishi of threatening sub-divisional magistrates and DMs for removing “fake votes”.

“The detection of fake Rohingyas and Bangladeshis voters has scared Kejriwal, and he is now fearing defeat,” he said. “These voter bases are funded by foreign donations… and are bought by the AAP. Now that their fraud has been uncovered, they fear losing in the upcoming elections,” he alleged.

“Removing a voter’s name from the voter list is a lengthy legal process that is entirely transparent… Therefore, removing a vote is not that easy,” said New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj.