SIR row escalates in UP as Akhilesh alleges 1 cr fake voters

Lucknow: The political fight over Uttar Pradesh’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists intensified on Wednesday after Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP of engineering large-scale fake voter registrations even as the state’s Chief Electoral Officer clarified that the draft roll is only a preliminary document and the final list will be published on March 6.

Reacting to the draft electoral roll released after the SIR exercise, Yadav said the process that, according to him, had troubled people across the country is now troubling the BJP itself. He alleged that BJP-linked elements had got around one crore fake votes added and demanded FIRs against those responsible.

“The BJP will now put pressure to increase votes because their votes have been cut. Fake voters were created, which means fake votes were cast, and the maximum such votes came out at BJP booths. Those who made fake voters should face FIRs,” Yadav told reporters. He thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh, saying that today the BJP is troubled by the same SIR process and is therefore holding “secret meetings”. “They got one crore votes increased, now questions are being raised on them,” he said.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa has been responding on social media platform X to objections and complaints regarding the draft electoral roll. He said only the initial phase of the SIR has been completed and stressed that the final electoral roll, to be issued on March 6, will be decisive.

Replying to Congress leader Gurdeep Singh Sappal, Rinwa said the presence or absence of a name in the draft roll is not final. He appealed to voters to submit Form-6 if their names are missing so they can be included. He also clarified that if a voter’s name has been removed from an old address and has not yet been added at the new address, it should not be treated as deletion from both places, and in such cases too, Form-6 should be filled.