EC’S inspection of deleted voters’ names a farce: Aam Aadmi Party

NEWDELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday termed an investigation carried out by the Delhi chief electoral officer’s (CEO) office — to verify deletion of around 1,900 names from the electoral rolls from Tughlakabad constituency — a ‘farcical drive’.

The CEO’S office, however, refuted the allegation stating that it conducted the inspection after following all due procedures.

AAP’S south Delhi Lok Sabha in-charge Raghav Chadha — who along with chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had flagged the issue in two separate letters to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) OP Rawat earlier this month — said on Sunday that the investigation was ‘flawed’ as the officers who conducted the inspections did not have the proper electoral list.

“After our complaint, the Delhi chief election officer’s office had formed 11 teams who carried out inspections in Lal Kuan and Harkesh Nagar of Tughlakabad constituency on November 6, 17 and 18. But, the door-to-door inspection means nothing as the lists of voters and deleted names that the teams had did not corroborate with the lists put out in the election commission’s website,” he said in a press conference.

Chadha also alleged that the CEO’S office has not given the AAP any list of voters or those whose names have been deleted till now.

The SDM (election) of south district, under whom the survey was conducted, denied the allegations.

“We had provided the entire list based on which the survey was conducted to the AAP and we have a receiving receipt of that too. Not just AAP, we sent the list to all other political parties. Also, if AAP has some list then nothing should stop them from sharing it with us,” said Naveen Gosain, SDM (election) of south district.

The poll panel, however, termed Delhi chief minister’s ‘10 lakh’ claim ‘factually incorrect’.

But, it agreed to enquire into the allegations of deletion of names at two places.