AAP alleges Delhi voter roll revision excludes Bihar, UP migrants
AAP has accused the Delhi electoral roll revision of removing large numbers of migrant voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The party says the exercise could disenfranchise lakhs unless the Election Commission reviews the process.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Wednesday alleged that the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Delhi has led to the “mass exclusion” of migrant voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The charge came after the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer’s office said on Monday that 97.47 lakh of the city’s 1.45 crore voters had submitted their enumeration forms, with 67.18 per cent digitised by booth-level officers across constituencies.
Addressing a press conference, AAP MLA Sanjeev Jha claimed that most of the votes removed under the SIR process belonged to migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. He said the issue was linked to voters being marked under the absent and shifted category and accused election officials of not carrying out the exercise properly.
Jha said, “These are mostly under the absent and shifted category. There are several problems in unauthorised colonies and JJ clusters with regard to identifications... BLOs have not done their jobs properly. It seems that the Election Commission intentionally removed their names from the list.”
The Burari MLA said that during an earlier meeting with the Election Commission, AAP had sought data on the names to be removed from the draft list under the absent and shifted category.
He said, “Voting rights of people should be maintained. The current SIR process is of exclusion, not inclusion. We had suggested that a separate meeting of the BLOs in areas where more than 50 per cent votes have been deleted, should be held with political party representatives. EC agreed to this but later no data was shared with us. Also, no meeting was called... this is intentional.”
Jha further said that the Election Commission should reconsider the exercise, or a large number of people would be left out of the voting process.
The door-to-door verification exercise under the SIR began on June 30 and ended on August 17, which was also the last day for submitting enumeration forms. More than 47 lakh of the city’s 1.45 crore voters now face exclusion because they either did not submit their forms or were marked as ASDD, which stands for absent, shifted, dead and duplicate.
During the verification drive, booth-level officers provided enumeration forms to each voter. Those who have not submitted their enumeration forms will be able to file Form 6 during the claims and objections period from August 24 to September 23.
In sum, AAP has alleged that the SIR process in Delhi has disproportionately affected migrant voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, while the Election Commission’s exercise has left over 47 lakh voters facing exclusion unless they complete the next stage of the process.