New Delhi, Dec 6 (UNI) Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Friday alleged that the BJP unlawfully deleted over 11,000 votes in the Shahdara constituency in the past month ahead of elections, claiming that these voters had either shifted or were deceased.
Addressing the media, Kejriwal pointed out, “In the Shahdara assembly constituency, the BJP has filed applications to delete 11,018 votes in the past month.”
Showcasing the applications signed by BJP officials with attached documents, Kejriwal, “In the last month and a half, BJP has already submitted applications to delete 11,000 votes, and the process is ongoing. Every two or three days, they come and submit applications to delete another 500 votes. By the time elections come, who knows how many more votes they will have deleted in Shahdara alone,” he alleged.
“In these applications, it is claimed that these 11,018 voters have either shifted or are deceased. Investigating all 11,000 applications was not feasible in such a short time, so we randomly selected 500 voters to verify. Many of these addresses belong to ‘jhuggi’ clusters and unauthorized colonies, making them difficult to locate. However, out of the 500 voters investigated, we found 372 voters still residing at the same addresses. Here is the list of those 372 voters whom we located and who are still residing at their listed addresses, contrary to BJP’s list in which they claim that they have shifted,” Kejriwal said.
“The remaining addresses could not be verified, but based on this sample, it is evident that BJP’s claim is flawed. If 372 out of 500 voters are still residing at their registered addresses, then over 75% of the applications filed by BJP could be false. This means that over 75% of the 11,000 voters whose names BJP wants deleted are genuine voters,” he asserted.
"When we spoke to these voters, we found that most of them are the AAP supporters, Kejriwal said, alleging that Shahdara constituency has a total of 1,86,362 voters, and BJP wants to delete 11,000 of them—nearly 6% of the constituency’s voters."
“In the last election, AAP won the Shahdara seat by a margin of just 5,294 votes. BJP is now attempting to delete 11,000 votes, almost double the margin by which we won last time. What is
the point of elections if this is how they are being manipulated?” he questioned.
Kejriwal further questioned the role of the Election Commission and urged it to upload details of all applications for vote deletions daily on its website in Form 10.
“Yet, as of yesterday, the Election Commission’s website showed only 487 applications for vote deletions in Shahdara constituency over the past month. This means that the 11,000 applications submitted by BJP are being processed secretly without being displayed on the website,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, Senior AAP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, and countless martyrs fought for the country so that its people could have the right to vote and elect their government. But out of fear of losing elections, BJP is pushing people back to the pre-independence era.”
“By secretly getting votes deleted through the Election Commission, they are betraying the souls of these martyrs and dragging the country back to colonial times. Is this the British Raj? The Election Commission must take cognizance of this and use its full authority to stop such misdeeds,” he said.
“In Shahdara constituency, during the 2020 elections, when there was a wave in favour of AAP in Delhi, we won the seat by a margin of about 5,200 votes. Our voting margin was 5,200 votes. Today, the documents we have show that BJP has submitted applications to delete over 11,000 votes. This reveals a systematic effort to delete AAP votes constituency by constituency,” MP Raghav Chadha said.
“The analysis shows that BJP is targeting 2–4 times the winning margins to ensure elections are not free and fair. This is a sign of tampering with the electoral machinery. It also shows that BJP has already conceded defeat and is resorting to such tactics to influence the upcoming 2025 Assembly elections,” he added.
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