New Delhi: Alleging that crores of people across the country were being deprived of their voting rights through the deletion of their names from electoral rolls, Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi Tuesday said all Opposition parties were united on the issue and would continue fighting to protect citizens’ right.
As part of the verification exercise, volunteers visited more than 1,100 households, covering over 5,000 electors.
Poor people are being removed from electoral rolls, and their rights are being snatched away… An attempt is being made to create a new India for a select group of billionaires, where citizens have no rights and the poor are denied their due, leaving a country that serves only the interests of billionaires,” he said, adding the Opposition would continue its campaign until CEC Gyanesh Kumar resigned or PM Narendra Modi removed him from the post. Volunteers from NSUI, AISA, IYC and NGOs helped residents navigate the revision process, raising awareness about the message: “Jaago, jaago voter, jaago, nahi toh vote kat jayega (wake up, voters, or your names will be deleted from the electoral rolls)”. Using digital copies of the electoral rolls downloaded from the Election Commission website, they categorised cases involving people who had not received notices, those whose submitted forms could not be traced, and voters marked as absent, deleted, shifted or deceased, said Siyaram Meena of NSUI.
“We have been raising this issue for a long time, but now the entire country is beginning to understand that votes are being stolen at the highest level. Gandhi’s remarks came while listening to residents recount their experiences at Ramlila Park in Trilokpuri, where a public hearing was organised by Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Jan Sarokar, Voter Adhikar Manch and National Federation of Indian Women.
An audit presented at the public hearing showed 2,097 of the 5,173 voters listed across the identified polling booths had been removed from the electoral rolls, accounting for 40.5% of the electorate, according to the organisers. Of these, 1,317 voters had been visited during the verification exercise. Among the 1,236 cases that could be verified, 416 voters were found to have been wrongly removed, the organisers said.
Volunteers said in several cases, BLOs had been stationed at a single location, instead of visiting individual households. The organisers demanded mandatory public audits of draft electoral rolls at every polling booth at least three months before an election, arguing it would help identify wrongful deletions and ensure eligible voters were not excluded.