lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Jan 20, 2019 09:35 IST

Delhi’s new voters’ list has become a political battleground of sorts with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday saying that its stand on ‘mass deletion’ of names from the electoral rolls had been vindicated and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging that the Kejriwal-led party was misleading people.

The political reactions came a day after the chief electoral officer’s (CEO) office released a revised voters’ list, saying 1,36,95,291 people would be eligible to vote in the Lok Sabha elections likely to be held in April-May.

The chief electoral officer’s office had said there was an increase of 7.78% in voter enrolment from the 2014 general elections.

But it had also said the number of voters had decreased by 1,19,575 compared to the electoral rolls published a year ago (January 10, 2018).

Raghav Chadha, AAP national spokesperson and the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from South Delhi, said the electoral roll vindicated AAP’s claim that the BJP had “orchestrated and engineered” the biggest ever voter deletion fraud on the people of Delhi.

“BJP is completely rattled as they have understood that they are going to face a humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. Delhi’s population has been steadily rising at an estimate rate of 5-6 lakh additions per year. Additionally, around four lakh citizens turn 18 each year. This would ideally translate to approximately 10 lakh voters increasing in the voter list every year,” Chadha said.

Officials in the election commission denied such claims and said purification of electoral rolls was an important aspect of the elections.

“In five years, about 10 lakh voters have increased. Also, our estimate is that about 2.5 lakh more voters will be added until the elections, which is taken as the last day of filing nominations,” said an election officer on condition of anonymity.

The BJP said the Delhi CEO’s announcement was a “slap on the face of AAP”.

“AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal had misled people by claiming that 30 lakh votes had been deleted whereas the Election Commission has clarified that 7.78% votes have been added after the last Lok Sabha elections and only 0.87% votes have decreased in comparison with last year’s data. These are the persons who have either died or have permanently shifted to places such as Noida, Gurugram and Faridabad,” said Manoj Tiwari, BJP’s Delhi unit president.