LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday accused the Election Commission of India of teaming up with the BJP in Uttar Pradesh to delete the names of PDA voters from the electoral roll through Form-7.
PDA is a political acronym coined by Yadav to represent a coalition of backward classes (Pichhda), Dalits, and minorities (Alpsankhyak).
According to the Election Commission, Form-7 is filled out to get the name of a voter deleted from the existing electoral roll.
Addressing a press conference here, Yadav said, "Voting is the biggest right in a democracy, and there should not be any fraud with it. But the ECI has teamed up with the BJP and made a plan to delete the names of the PDA voters from the electoral roll through Form-7 in Uttar Pradesh."
"Some people are of the view that an IAS officer posted in the chief minister's office is exerting pressure on the divisional commissioners and district magistrates to cut the names of the PDA voters from the list," Yadav alleged.
Posing a question to the chief electoral officer of Uttar Pradesh, Yadav said, "Will he tell on whose side is he in this 'milibhagat' (connivance)?" The former chief minister also claimed that there is disappointment among the booth-level officers (BLOs) after the name of a BLO was reportedly removed from the voter list.
"Are we moving towards 'one nation, one election', or is there a bigger conspiracy," Yadav asked.
Citing some printed forms he was carrying, Yadav said when a poor man goes to the election officials and inquires about his name in the voter list after coming to know that it has been deleted, he is shown the voter list of the State Election Commission, and told that his name is still there.
"The person does not know which voter list is more important, whether that of the Assembly or the village pradhan," Yadav claimed.
Citing sources in Sitapur, Yadav claimed that preparations are being made to commit fraud by submitting printed Form-7 of Muslim voters.
"When the Samajwadi leaders and workers reached out to the complainant, they found that he was a poor labourer who did not know how to sign, and used fingerprints instead.
"Now you can imagine how printed Form-7s are reaching the villages. And this fraud is going on in the entire state, from Ghaziabad to Ghazipur," Yadav claimed.
He also claimed that the BJP is making such preparations in the Assembly constituencies it lost in 2022.
"The EC should make alternate arrangements to verify the downloaded forms, which must be numbered and carry the poll panel's hologram.
"All the Form-7s submitted till now should be rejected, and every signature must be verified. The EC should use artificial intelligence to catch the fraudsters," Yadav said, adding that his party has already submitted a written complaint to the poll panel in this regard.