On Monday, the AAP filed a formal complaint with Electoral Registration Officers across all 70 assembly constituencies, accusing the BJP of orchestrating these deletions through bulk applications.
A senior leader of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Sanjay Singh has accused the Election Commission of colluding with the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) in alleged attempts to delete voter names from Delhi's electoral rolls in a coordinated manner ahead of the February 2025 Delhi Assembly elections.
On Monday, the AAP filed a formal complaint with Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) across all 70 assembly constituencies, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of orchestrating these deletions through bulk applications.
AAP leader Sanjay Singh on Tuesday further accused the Election Commission of colluding with the BJP to delete voter names.
“We came to know that an application for the deletion of 3,800 voters' names has been submitted in the RK Puram constituency. When our workers and local MLA verified these voters, they found that 1,800 of them are still living in the same place and are eligible voters,” Singh claimed at the press conference.
"The voters named in the application belong to those booths where the AAP has been winning elections in the past," he claimed
The Election Commission has yet to respond to AAP's allegations.
In a letter addressed to the EROs, AAP National Secretary Pankaj Gupta warned that legal action would be pursued under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) 2023 and the Representation of the People Act 1950 if any voter names were wrongfully deleted. Gupta further emphasized that the Election Commission's guidelines prohibit individuals or organizations from submitting bulk applications for voter deletions, calling the practice a violation of electoral integrity.
“These bulk deletions, carried out against the spirit of free and fair elections, would undermine the Summary Revision process conducted by the Election Commission itself,” Gupta wrote in his letter.
A major point of contention is the Shahdara Assembly Constituency (AC-62), where AAP claims that over 11,000 voter names have been targeted for deletion in the last six weeks alone.
“It has come to our knowledge that in Shahdara Assembly Constituency (AC No. 62), BJP has submitted applications for the deletion of over 11,000 existing voters in the last six weeks on the premise that the voters have shifted, deceased, or there is duplication. In case the Election Commission deems it necessary to delete any voter, we demand that this be done through a ground verification exercise by the concerned BLO (Booth Level Officer) in the presence of our BLA-2 to ensure genuine voters are not wrongfully removed from the voter list,” the letter stated.
Gupta has called for a thorough verification of the voters through a Booth Level Officer (BLO) to ensure that only those who are genuinely ineligible are removed from the rolls.
AAP also expressed concerns about the lack of transparency in the deletion process, claiming that the EROs were processing these applications without uploading them to the Election Commission’s website, as required by the guidelines. “These applications are being processed surreptitiously,” the letter states, warning that AAP would take legal action against both the errant Election Commission officials and those responsible within the BJP.
No official response from the BJP was received at the time of reporting, but the party has previously dismissed similar allegations as baseless.
Last week, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva accused AAP of shielding fraudulent voters, particularly pointing to alleged illegal immigrants. “Rohingyas and Bangladeshis are being caught, and Kejriwal is panicking because this vote bank, funded by foreign sources, is being exposed,” PTI quoted Sachdeva.
The controversy comes as the Delhi Assembly elections approach, with AAP seeking a third consecutive term in office. In the 2020 elections, AAP secured a landslide victory, winning 62 out of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. As the election campaign intensifies, allegations of voter list manipulation and electoral irregularities are shaping up to be a contentious issue in the run-up to the polls.