New Delhi, 9 January 2025: Arvind Kejriwal, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), has filed a formal complaint with the Election Commission (EC) on Thursday, accusing the BJP of attempting to influence the vote count in its favour.
"The BJP has applied to add 13,000 new voters to the electoral roll while seeking to remove 5,500 existing entries," Kejriwal told reporters after his meeting with EC officials.
“These attempts are clearly aimed at manipulating the electorate, he said.
Kejriwal explained that in the past 22 days, around 5,500 applications for voter deletions had been submitted, which he described as unusually high for a constituency of roughly one lakh voters. “This accounts for 5.5 percent of the electorate, and such a massive surge raises alarms,” he said.
Upon investigation, Kejriwal claims that when the Election Commission reached out to some of the individuals associated with these deletion requests, they denied having filed them. "All 89 individuals contacted have denied submitting any such requests. This clearly indicates a scam," he asserted.
Besides, Kejriwal pointed to another concerning trend. "In just 15 days, applications to add 13,000 new voters have been filed," he noted, warning that such last-minute changes could undermine the credibility of the electoral process.
BJP has fielded Parvesh Verma, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma, while Congress has nominated Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.
The AAP leader also accused BJP's Parvesh Verma of offering bribes and distributing money to voters, and demanded a raid on Verma’s residence to investigate potential illicit funding.
“We are prepared to fight against these malpractices and will not allow them to tamper with the election process,” Kejriwal added.