Samajwadi Party begins process of gathering evidence to back its claim about voter names deletion

The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Monday asked all its 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly poll candidates (winners and losers) and district units top office bearers to gather evidence of names having been “wrongfully struck off voters’ lists”. They were also directed to compile photocopies of complaints made to returning officers at the time.

The move comes four days after the Election Commission of India (ECI) asked Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav to “submit documentary proof” to substantiate his allegation about deletion of voter names in the 2022 U.P. assembly polls.

The party has set November 3 as the deadline for the candidates to submit the documents to the party headquarters “so that they could be sent to the Election Commission in time,” said a letter issued by SP state president Naresh Uttam Patel. The party posted the letter on its twitter handle.

Patel’s letter also asked to collect affidavits from such voters whose names were wrongfully struck off the voters’ lists.

On October 27, the EC, according to people familiar with the matter, had asked Akhilesh Yadav to submit proof to back up his charges by November 10.

Akhilesh hit back at the poll panel on October 28 and said: “Had the Election Commission itself followed the rules related to the voters’ list in the 2022 U.P. assembly polls, then thousands of voters would not have been deprived of their vote.”

Last month, the SP chief had alleged that the names of 20,000 voters from the Yadav and Muslim communities were deleted from almost all 403 assembly constituencies ahead of the state elections in February-March.