New Delhi: An Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) delegation, led by Arvind Kejriwal, met the Election Commission on Wednesday, accusing the BJP of orchestrating a "mass voter deletion" conspiracy in Delhi ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections.
Addressing the media after the meeting, AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal said they had submitted 3,000 pages of evidence to the Election Commission, alleging that the BJP was engaged in a large-scale effort to remove votes of current Delhi residents.
"Most of the votes being deleted belong to the poor, Scheduled Castes, Dalit communities, especially those living in slums. For a common person, a single vote holds immense value, as it grants them citizenship of this country," he said.
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Kejriwal further alleged that a BJP official in Shahdara had secretly submitted a list of 11,008 voters for deletion, and the Election Commission had begun working on the matter covertly. "In Janakpuri, 24 BJP workers applied to remove 4,874 votes. In Tughlakabad, 15 BJP workers sought the deletion of 2,435 votes. At Booth No. 117 in Tughlakabad, there are 1,337 registered voters, yet two individuals applied to delete 554 votes--this means they attempted to remove 40 per cent of votes from a single booth," he claimed.
Kejriwal emphasised that AAP had demanded an immediate halt to such mass deletions and called for FIRs to be filed against those submitting such applications.
"The Election Commission gave us three or four assurances," Kejriwal stated. "First, no mass deletion will take place before the elections.
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Secondly, anyone seeking to delete votes will now have to fill out Form 7. Before any votes are deleted, a field inquiry will be conducted by the Booth Level Officer (BLO), accompanied by representatives from other political parties. We believe this will prevent wrongful deletions."
He added, "Another assurance we received is that if a single individual applies for more than five deletions, the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) will personally conduct the field inquiry, again accompanied by representatives of other parties."
The Delhi Assembly elections are expected to take place in early 2025. In the 2020 Assembly elections, AAP won 62 out of 70 seats, while the BJP secured eight.