UP CEO rejects allegations of voter list manipulation

Lucknow:Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa on Tuesday once again rejected allegations by political parties regarding large-scale deletion of names from the electoral rolls during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR). He said that complaints raised from constituencies including Bidhuna, Bhojipura, Babaganj, Sakalya and Pratapgarh were investigated and found to be incorrect.Rinwa said the election commission has held five meetings with political parties since the SIR began in the state, and the procedures for additions and deletions have been explained in detail on each occasion. Booth level agents (BLAs) have also been trained to monitor changes in the rolls and use technological tools to verify entries.Addressing specific allegations, the CEO said no voter names were deleted in Bidhuna. Claims made in Bhojipura regarding the name of a Samajwadi Party booth-level agent, Ateeq Ahmed, being removed were also found to be baseless. Similar accusations from Babaganj, Sakalya and Pratapgarh were proven incorrect after scrutiny.Rinwa said political parties have been given clear guidance on reviewing draft voter lists and checking categories such as absent, shifted, dead (ASD), duplicate entries and refused-to-sign cases. Data for 2.88 crore such entries is available online, along with lists of 3.26 crore voters who have been issued notices.Before the revision drive, all 75 district election officers and 403 electoral registration officers underwent training in Lucknow on constitutional provisions, the Representation of the People Act, voter list manuals, the BLO app and the ERO-Net system. An additional training session was conducted on Tuesday at the Uttar Pradesh Academy of Administration and Management, attended by six district election officers and 55 electoral registration officers.Responding to Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's objection to Form 7, Rinwa said the process was mandated by law and not an administrative decision. He explained that the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electoral Rules, 1960 prescribe the procedure for publishing draft rolls, inviting objections and claims, and processing deletions and additions. He said Form 7 serves a crucial statutory purpose: it allows objections to be raised after the draft roll is published, because errors may occur at the booth level. Many citizens who submitted enumeration forms earlier did not find their names in the draft roll due to mistakes or because their names were not on the Oct 27, 2025 base list. Form 6 and Form 7 give them the opportunity to correct such gaps.