Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday alleged that the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls—an exercise he claims was misused across the country—has now created trouble for the Bharatiya Janata Party itself. Reacting to the draft voter list released in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav accused authorities of allowing large-scale manipulation of electoral data.
Addressing the media, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister claimed that fraudulent entries had been added to the voter list in favour of the BJP. He alleged that nearly one crore votes were illegally inserted and demanded criminal cases against those responsible for creating what he described as fake voters.
According to Yadav, the presence of bogus entries indicates that unauthorised voting may have taken place in previous elections. He alleged that the highest number of such questionable entries emerged from booths where the BJP had strong organisational presence. He further claimed that the ruling party was now unsettled because the same revision process had begun exposing irregularities.
“The mechanism used to harass people is now troubling the BJP itself,” Yadav said, adding that reports of closed-door meetings within the ruling party showed growing concern over scrutiny of the voter list. He credited the people of Uttar Pradesh for raising questions and insisted that officials involved in preparing fraudulent electoral data must be booked.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa sought to address public concerns over the draft electoral roll. Responding to objections raised on social media, Rinwa clarified that the draft list marks only the initial stage of the revision process and that the final electoral roll, scheduled for publication on March 6, will be decisive.
Replying to Congress leader Gurdeep Singh Sappal, the CEO emphasised that inclusion or deletion in the draft roll is not conclusive. He urged voters whose names do not appear in the draft list to submit Form-6 for correction or inclusion.
