Banyas, Purvanchalis are new Muslims for BJP in Delhi: AAP

NEW DELHI: The AAP on Wednesday alleged that the people from the Baniya caste and Purvanchalis (people from Bihar) have become the new Muslims for the BJP. The party earlier alleged that nearly 30 lakh voters' names were deleted from the list of East Delhi Lok Sabha Constituency.

The party leaders raised the issue that most of the people are from Banya caste followed by Muslims and Purvanchalis. "Do the Purvanchalis and Banyas have no right to vote?" asked Atishi, senior AAP leader. Earlier the party had alleged that 10 lakh names were removed from the electoral rolls, a charge that was denied by the Election Commission of India and had invited sharp criticism from BJP. "Upon analysing the deleted voters' list, we found that names of people from three communities – Baniya (traders), Muslim and Purvanchalis –dominated the list of 30 lakh deleted voters of Delhi," AAP spokesperson Atishi said earlier.

Atishi, who is AAP's in-charge of East Delhi Lok Sabha seat, also claimed that names of over four lakh voters were deleted in the constituency.

The issue of deletion of names of voters was raised first by AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who had met then chief election commissioner O P Rawat last month. Kejriwal had claimed over 10 lakh voters were removed from electoral rolls since assembly elections in Delhi in 2015.

AAP national spokesperson Raghav Chadha earlier said, "The whole exercise of checking whether the deleted voters' names were factually correct or not was turned into a complete joke by the Election Commission officers."

The Delhi Assembly also passed a resolution on Tuesday asking the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Delhi to conduct a door-to-door survey to verify names of lakhs of voters, which as per the resolution, were deleted from electoral rolls of the national Capital since the AAP came to power in February 2015.