Akhilesh Yadav alleges voter-deletion conspiracy during SIR exercise in UP

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday accused the BJP government and the Election Commission of India of conspiring to delete more than 50,000 voters from each Assembly constituency where the SP and the INDIA bloc performed strongly in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The allegation was made at a press conference held at the party headquarters on the birth anniversary of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The comments came during the ongoing SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls across Uttar Pradesh and 11 other states. Yadav said SIR should not be conducted during the wedding season and demanded that the Election Commission extend the timeline for the voter-list cleanup exercise in Uttar Pradesh.

Citing electoral data, he said the BJP, which secured 255 seats in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, led in only 162 Assembly segments in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In contrast, the SP, which won 111 Assembly seats in 2022, led in 183 Assembly segments in last year’s general elections. He added that the Congress, which won two Assembly seats in 2022, led in 40 Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha elections.

“After losing ground, the BJP brought in SIR as a conspiracy,” Yadav alleged, adding that the poll panel’s conduct during recent bypolls in Uttar Pradesh raised concerns of impartiality. He claimed that multiple complaints filed by the SP received no response.

According to Yadav, the BJP and the Election Commission are preparing to delete “over 50,000 voters in each Assembly constituency won by the SP or the INDIA bloc,” particularly in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. He urged SP office-bearers and workers to thoroughly verify voter rolls, coordinate with booth-level officers, add eligible voters and promptly report irregularities to the state headquarters.

Yadav also played an audio clip during the press conference, purported to be a conversation involving a sub-divisional magistrate discussing technical issues related to SIR. Pointing to his own constituency, Kannauj, he said it had become a “target” and added that those who could remove Emperor Harshavardhan’s statue in Prayagraj “can certainly remove voters.”

Demanding a clear standard operating procedure from the Election Commission for political parties during SIR, he said there are 414 days left before elections and alleged that the “conspiracy” aims to delete more than 50,000 votes in every Assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh. He asserted that SP workers were prepared to counter such attempts.

Remembering Mulayam Singh Yadav, a three-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and founder of the SP, he reiterated that the Netaji Memorial will be inaugurated on 22 November next year. He added that toppers and gold medallists from Dr Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University were felicitated with iPads in Mulayam Singh Yadav’s memory.