The AAP claimed Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha’s inclusion in the Delhi electoral roll bypassed the rules
Delhi’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has denied allegations that ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chadha’s name was added to the electoral roll in the national capital “without following the due process” after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claimed his inclusion bypassed the rules.
The allegation came days after Chadha accused Punjab’s AAP government of a “political vendetta” after his name was marked under the “shifted” category in the state’s draft electoral roll. Chadha, among seven of the 10 AAP members of the upper House who defected to the BJP in April, has been a voter in Mohali.
AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj on Tuesday said Chadha claimed he was a voter in Punjab and would get his vote registered there again when the Election Commission of India (ECI) froze the electoral roll. He referred to the Delhi draft electoral roll and asked how Chadha’s name featured in it while the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Punjab and Delhi coincided.
Bharadwaj asked the ECI to tell them what process Chadha followed. “We do not believe this is a normal process. This is abnormal, and we have never seen this happen before.”
The AAP has accused Chadha of seeking a backdated entry to the electoral rolls in Delhi’s Rajinder Nagar.
Chadha maintained he followed all applicable guidelines and procedures and availed the prescribed remedies. “The AAP has confused ‘electoral rolls’ with its ‘party membership register.’ It wants to cut out everyone who walks away from [the party chief Arvind] Kejriwal and his corrupt AAP.”
Delhi CEO Ashok Kumar issued a statement, maintaining that electors are added, deleted, or modified only through Form 6, 7, and 8, which are processed as per the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The statement added that any elector can submit these forms at any time of the year. It reiterated a firm commitment to a “transparent and inclusive revision process.”
The draft list after the SIR in Delhi was published on August 31 based on enumeration forms collected between June 30 and August 17. The draft electoral roll was published in Punjab on August 13.