NEW DELHI: AAM Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Atishi and Raghav Chadha have claimed that the Delhi Police is “intimidating” the people working for the AAP who were highlighting the alleged deletion of names of 30 lakh voters from the electoral list.
The police, on its part, said an investigation is on by the Crime branch. “Some people are being questioned,” said a senior Delhi Police officer.
Giving details of the “harassment”, the two AAP leaders claimed the police were calling call centre employees working for the party and asking them questions.
For the past three months, many citizens have received phone calls informing them that their names were struck off from the voters’ list and that AAP workers will get help them to re-enroll. The BJP and the Congress had submitted written complaints to the Election Commission. Later, the Chief Electoral Officer of Delhi had issued a statement asserting that no other authority can add or delete names from the electoral list.
Atishi, the AAP’s East Delhi Lok Sabha candidate, has spoken about the matter prominently on the social media. “Voter deletion is a strategy that is used by BJP in elections. This is exactly what happened in Telangana, where it was brought to light by badminton player Jwala Gutta whose name was wrongfully deleted from voter list. BJP is now worried that their strategy is being exposed! So they are now using Delhi Police to intimidate the call centres that have been hired by AAP,” she wrote on Twitter.
“Call centres hired are being harassed and intimidated by Delhi Police; they are being called every day to the Crime Branch for questioning,” she posted in another tweet.
Her party colleague Raghav claimed the BJP was using Central investigative agencies to hamper the work of the AAP government ove rthe past four-and-a-half years.
“Now when we are trying to highlight this voter deletion issue, the same thing is happening,” claimed Chadha, who is the party’s candidate for the South Delhi constituency for the upcoming polls.