Akhilesh Yadav Accuses EC of Colluding With BJP to Delete Names of PDA Voters in UP From Electoral Roll
New Delhi: Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday (February 3) accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of colluding with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh to delete the names of pichhda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak (backward classes, Dalits and minorities) – popularly called as PDA by the SP) voters from the electoral roll by using Form-7, reported Press Trust of India.
As per the ECI, Form-7 is filled out to get the name of a voter deleted from the existing electoral roll.
"Voting is the biggest right in a democracy, and there should not be any fraud with it. But the ECI has teamed up with the BJP and made a plan to delete the names of the PDA voters from the electoral roll through Form-7 in Uttar Pradesh," said Yadav while addressing a press conference on Tuesday.
"Some people are of the view that an IAS officer posted in the chief minister's office is exerting pressure on the divisional commissioners and district magistrates to cut the names of the PDA voters from the list," he alleged.
Yadav added that even among the booth-level officers (BLOs), there is disappointment after the name of a BLO was reportedly removed from the voter list.
"Will he tell on whose side is he in this 'milibhagat' (connivance)?" Yadav posed a question to the chief electoral officer of Uttar Pradesh.
"Are we moving towards 'one nation, one election', or is there a bigger conspiracy?" asked Yadav.
Yadav showed some printed forms and said that when a poor person inquires if his name has been deleted from the voter list, election officials show him the voter list of the State Election Commission to tell him that his name is still there.
"The person does not know which voter list is more important, whether that of the Assembly or the village pradhan," alleged Yadav, reported PTI.
He alleged that there were preparations to commit fraud through submission of printed Form-7 for Muslim voters.
"When the Samajwadi leaders and workers reached out to the complainant, they found that he was a poor labourer who did not know how to sign, and used fingerprints instead. Now you can imagine how printed Form-7s are reaching the villages. And this fraud is going on in the entire state, from Ghaziabad to Ghazipur," said Yadav.
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