Increase of 6.1 lakh voters since 2015, says election office

Some parties raised the issue that 30 lakh voters had been deleted since 2015. We said this was false and informed that a total 17,54,356 electors had been added and 11,44,316 electors had been deleted.

RANBIR SINGH , chief electoral officer, Delhi

NEW DELHI: The state election commission will organise special camps across Delhi to enrol new voters on February 23 and 24. The decision was taken after the Delhi chief electoral officer (CEO) held a meeting of all political parties on Wednesday and clarified that the electoral rolls had seen an increase of 6.10 lakh voters since 2015.

Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh said the meeting was attended by the representatives of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (M) and Indian National Congress.

“Some parties raised the issue that 30 lakh voters had been deleted since 2015. We said this was false and informed that from 2015 to 2019, a total 17,54,356 electors had been added and 11,44,316 electors had been deleted. Hence, there is a net addition of 6,10,040 electors since the year 2015,” Singh said.

Later, in a statement, the commission said they requested all parties to appoint booth level agents at each of the city’s 13,816 polling stations.

AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj said he, Atishi and Raghav Chadha went for the meeting. “We stressed that the party strongly believes that the votes of millions of people have been cut in an incorrect and illegitimate manner. If the voters are being informed that their registration have been deleted, then AAP is fulfilling a social obligation. This work should be primarily done by the Election Commission so that people can restore their votes. This awareness campaign should have been started by Election Commission in the first place,” Bhardwaj said.

The CEO’S office said it was already taking steps to create awareness among the citizens to check their names in the rolls. If their names are not found, they can enrol themselves either online on NVSP site or offline at voter centres.

“It was unanimously decided to organise special camps at all polling locations on Saturday/ Sunday to enrol eligible citizens and first-time voters in the age group of 18-19 years,” the statement said.