Akhilesh urges PDA voters to guard against deletion of names from electoral rolls

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday sounded a note of alarm, urging voters — especially members of the PDA community — to remain vigilant against what he described as a concerted attempt to erase their political voice from the electoral rolls.

Addressing party workers and his network of “PDA Praharis”, Yadav appealed for heightened vigilance to ensure that no “conspiracy” to delete the votes of the PDA community succeeds. The acronym PDA, coined by him in June 2023, represents Pichhde (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities).

In a post on X, the SP chief claimed that despite the efforts of PDA Praharis, crores of votes belonging to the community had already been struck off voter lists. He called for an intensified, booth-level verification drive, driven by the resolve that “not a single vote should be deleted, not a single vote should be reduced”.

The Samajwadi Party, he said, has appointed PDA Praharis in every district to safeguard the community’s presence in electoral rolls. Stressing the importance of voter awareness, Yadav warned that the absence of a name from the voter list could have far-reaching consequences and be misused in the future.

Taking aim at the BJP-led government, Yadav alleged that voter lists could become the basis for what he termed “draconian laws” designed to deny citizens their rights and entitlements. He claimed that the deletion of names could be used to question access to ration cards, government welfare schemes, caste certificates, reservations, bank accounts, property records, PAN cards, Ayushman cards, essential supplies, and even ownership of land and houses.

“Consider your name on the voter list as proof of your citizenship. Treat the voter ID as your citizen ID,” Yadav said, accusing what he described as a “land-hungry BJP government” of harbouring designs to strip people of their rights, wealth and property through legal manoeuvres.

He further accused the BJP of manipulating electoral processes, alleging that a party capable of facilitating uncontested elections could go to any lengths — including mass deletions from voter lists — to secure victory. Corruption and the grabbing of water, forests and land, he claimed, formed part of the ruling party’s hidden agenda.

Urging the PDA community to treat his message as a warning, Yadav called on voters to register their names, protect their citizenship and vote decisively against the BJP to usher in what he described as a “PDA government”.

Safeguarding one’s vote, he added, was inseparable from protecting the Constitution, reservations and jobs, cautioning that the poor, exploited and marginalised inevitably bear the heaviest burden. He ended his appeal with a stark exhortation: “Make your vote, save your future.”

With PTI inputs