Hours after AAP alleged on Friday that the Election Commission of India (ECI) has not investigated the party’s complaints alleging ‘vote chori’ (election fraud) in the run-up to the February Delhi elections, the ECI said it had issued a response to the party on January 13, maintaining that “all actions” taken in the matter are in “adherence to the Representation of People Act, 1950”.
“Hence, allegations of non-compliance, inaction or lack of transparency are factually incorrect and devoid of merit,” it added.
This comes after AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that 42,000 voters were deleted before the elections in the New Delhi constituency, which was then represented by AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
He said that before the polls, then Chief Minister Atishi had submitted a letter to then chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar on January 5, questioning 6,166 requests to delete names of voters in New Delhi constituency.
Bharadwaj maintained that in the letter, AAP had alleged large-scale scam in the constituency, with fraudulent identities being used to add and remove thousands of names from the electoral rolls. The ECI had then directed the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer to probe the complaint, take appropriate action and submit an action taken report.
According to the details of one Right to Information (RTI) reply Bharadwaj posted on social media, while the ECI has said that it had received the complaint filed by then CM Atishi, it did not disclose details about who was looking into it, whether it had been forwarded to any other department, if any FIR had been lodged or whether any action had been taken. On the current status of Atishi’s complaint in its record, the ECI said that “no action is pending on the part of the Election Commission”, the RTI reply showed.
“Then CEC Rajiv Kumar and the current CEC Gyanesh Kumar – both their roles are suspicious. One did not initiate an investigation and the other is now hiding information,” Bhardwaj alleged.
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Responding to the allegations, the ECI said in a social media post that it had responded to Atishi’s complaints on January 13 with a “detailed reply of 76 pages, consisting of seven annexures, including reports of CEO/District Election Office (DEO)”. It added that according to the annexures, “all actions taken by the election machinery are in adherence to the Representation of People Act”.
In response to AAP’s claims about applications seeking removal of 6,166 voters, the DEO said, “Considering the large number of Form 7 submissions received post-special summary revision, their disposal is being carried out with extra caution and only after cross-verification…”
It added that of the 327 applications under Form 6 (applications for inclusion in voter rolls) it had processed, 64% (212 forms) were rejected due to insufficient documentation and the “high level of rejection itself signifies that the forms are being disposed of by observing multi-level scrutiny as well as field verification”.
“Needless to mention, complaints have been lodged to police under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, against applicants who furnished false information, to deter fraudulent practices,” the post added.
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Reacting to the ECI’s post, Bharadwaj asked the poll body to provide a copy of the FIR registered for impersonation. “It has been eight months, so chargesheet should have been filed by now. If you are waiting for an affidavit, I am ready to sign the affidavit and submit. We are not scared of frivolous prosecution by the government,” he added.
In the February polls, Kejriwal had lost to BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh in the New Delhi constituency by a margin of 4,089 votes. Overall, AAP had won only 22 seats, with BJP bagging 48 of the 70 and forming the government after 27 years in the Capital.
This is Bhardwaj’s second press conference on the issue. On Thursday also, he had alleged that AAP voters have been deliberately removed from the electoral rolls.
“By the time the summary revision of the 2025 Delhi elections was completed in October 2024, the New Delhi constituency saw the number of voters had already been reduced from 1,48,000 to 1,06,000,” he had said earlier on Friday.
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“On 9 January, Arvind Kejriwal himself wrote to the CEC on the party’s letterhead, again providing detailed information about the fraudulent activity in the New Delhi assembly constituency. On 8 and 9 January the CM again wrote letters with full particulars, asking what action had been taken and whether a criminal investigation had been launched,” he added.
The AAP leader also took to his X handle to post a copy of the ECI’s reply to the Right To Information (RTI) query posed by the party following the January 9 letter over the ‘deletion of names’. “The ‘vote chori’ took place through fraud and impersonation to delete non-BJP voters’ names,” he said.
