The AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, the national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party and former Chief Minister of Delhi, hit back with solid ammunition at the BJP’s alleged scheme of tampering with the voter lists in the national capital. The BJP allegedly did this under what he described as “Operation Lotus” targeting the outcome of the upcoming state assembly elections, which Kejriwal asserted, began on December 15.
During a news conference on December 29, Kejriwal said, “The BJP has already conceded defeat in Delhi. They don’t have a chief ministerial candidate, they don’t have a clear vision and they don’t have credible candidates. In desperation, they are trying to win by using fraud ways of tampering with the voter list.”
Kejriwal mentioned some cases in the New Delhi Assembly constituency, informing that 5,000 applications were filed in the last two weeks to delete voters. He went further to say that 7,500 more applications were filed to add voters- all indicative of manipulations going on in about 12 percent of the electorate.
Kejriwal, in Shahdara, accused the BJP of trying to delete 11,800 votes, which was stayed after the intervention of the Election Commission of India. He said a summary revision conducted by the ECI on October 29 had added nearly 100,000 voters in New Delhi constituency, questioning the credibility of ECI in the wake of BJP’s complaints of irregularities.
Further allegations included the fact that the BJP filed an application to delete the vote of AAP MP Sanjay Singh’s wife, staying in the New Delhi area. Delhi Chief Minister Atishi also alleged that the BJP was using all sorts of tricks to rig the elections.
Kejriwal asked EROs to scrutinize deletions or additions of votes more than 2% and 4% respectively and warned them to stick to the legal standards without succumbing to political pressure. “Your signatures will remain on those files for years. Do not engage in any wrongdoings; accountability will follow,” he cautioned.
These comments come a week after Atishi accused BJP leaders of bribing voters in the New Delhi constituency, targeting BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma for allegedly distributing money to influence voters at his official residence.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh asked why Sandeep Dixit was silent over the activities of Verma, saying, “Why hasn’t Sandeep Dixit filed a complaint against Parvesh Verma? He can contest elections and is openly distributing money, yet Dixit chooses to raise issues against AAP. This suggests he is running a campaign sponsored by the BJP.”
