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Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Monday took a dig at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over his remarks on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, suggesting that the Election Commission was acting at the behest of two people and extending advance congratulations to Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Reacting to a video of Yogi Adityanath's interview shared on X, Kejriwal wrote, "Maharaj ji, you also know that the Election Commission does whatever those two tell it to. I warned you before too. These two are out to finish you off. Congratulations in advance to Akhilesh ji." In the interview, Yogi Adityanath questioned the changes in the electoral rolls following the SIR exercise in Uttar Pradesh and claimed that a large number of Hindu voters whose names appeared in the state panchayat election voter lists were missing from the Election Commission of India's electoral rolls. Responding to a question on whether the SIR exercise could affect the BJP, the Chief Minister said the Muslim voter population had increased by 1.65 per cent after the revision, while raising concerns over the deletion of Hindu voters' names. "That is why we also submitted our memorandum to the Election Commission. We submitted it asking what reasons led to this," CM Yogi said. He claimed that around 1.27 crore Hindu voters whose names appeared in the Uttar Pradesh panchayat election voter lists were missing from the EC's electoral rolls. "There are 66 lakh such voters... 55 lakh voters are those Hindu voters who are direct beneficiaries of government welfare schemes, yet their names are missing from the voter list. There are around 4.5 lakh voters aged 18 and 19 whose names are completely missing from the voter list," he said. The Chief Minister clarified that the state government had no interference in the exercise, adding, "The Election Commission of India is an independent, constitutional body. The Election Commission of India conducts and oversees all of this." He said the state government had approached the Commission with evidence and sought an explanation. https://x.com/arvindkejriwal/status/2119753000671711605 Kejriwal's remarks come amid an intensifying political debate over the SIR exercise ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Earlier in the day, Akhilesh Yadav demanded that Aadhaar cards be linked to voting and biometric identification be introduced to prevent electoral malpractice. In a post on X, Yadav called for Aadhaar-linked voting, metal voter identity cards and fingerprint or iris-based biometric verification, alleging that these measures would prevent the BJP from manipulating votes. "Simple, straightforward demands regarding the election: Aadhaar cards should be linked to voting. Instead of paper or plastic, metal cards should be made so they cannot be forged. Fingerprint or iris-based biometric identification should be adopted because no two people have the same biometrics, so the BJP will not be able to rig the vote," he wrote. This comes amid Opposition parties' ongoing agitation against the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, and the SIR exercise. The INDIA bloc has demanded CEC Kumar's resignation and a rollback of the SIR exercise. Uttar Pradesh is set to hold Assembly elections next year, in which the SP eyes a comeback after two consecutive defeats in 2017 and 2022. (ANI).
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