Akhilesh Yadav Questions Yogi’s 1.27 Crore Missing Hindu Voters Claim

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav asked in Lucknow on Friday, 6 November, how Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath knew that 1.27 crore Hindu voters were missing from Uttar Pradesh’s electoral rolls. He suggested the Election Commission may have shared its data with the chief minister’s office before releasing it to parties. Speaking at a party programme, Yadav said the BJP had “effectively lost the election even before the voting has taken place”, according to PTI and ANI. The reports carry no response from the Election Commission.

The Arithmetic Yadav Offered

Yadav said 1.27 crore removed voters would mean about 31,000 votes lost per assembly constituency. He said BJP workers were urged to help add 2 crore names to the rolls during Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit to Lucknow for the party’s state working committee meeting, which he took as proof the party already knew how many names had gone. He also accused Adityanath of raising the “infiltrators” issue to defend the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). “It appears that the Election Commission has shared the entire data with the chief minister or the chief minister’s office,” Yadav said. These are his allegations; the reports do not verify them.

Where the 1.27 Crore Figure Came From

Adityanath made the claim at a BJP state executive meeting in Lucknow on 30 October, as reported on 31 October. He said Uttar Pradesh should have more than 16 crore voters against about 13 crore now, and asked workers to coordinate with Booth Level Officers to enrol eligible voters. Election Commission data cited by NewsBytes shows more than 2.04 crore names removed after the SIR, over 84 lakh added, and a final electorate of 13,39,84,792. The report does not explain how the 1.27 crore figure was calculated. IPB has covered the rolls earlier in Post-SIR Voter Rolls: 2.29 Crore Fewer Electors in Five States and Congress’s question on UP deletions, and tracks the poll body on its Election Commission page.

Also read UP SIR Form 7 Complaints: Supreme Court Tells EC to Act on Bulk Deletions

Form 7 Complaints Before the Supreme Court

Yadav also alleged that Form 7, the form used to seek deletion of a voter’s name, was misused in bulk, and said Samajwadi Party workers stopped it. On 31 October, a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana asked the Election Commission to examine alleged bulk Form 7 applications in Uttar Pradesh and file a compliance report, according to a Gujarat Samachar report. Election Commission counsel D S Naidu told the court that bulk applications had been submitted but officials found them false and did not act on them. The 403-seat Uttar Pradesh Assembly goes to polls in 2027, and the Samajwadi Party plans to release its “Jan-Man Manifesto” on 26 November, Constitution Day.

Source: Based on reporting by ThePrint (PTI), ANI, Free Press Journal and NewsBytes.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.