After Congress, AAP attacks poll body, accuses Chief Election Commissioner of ignoring earlier complaints on deletion of voters

Role of Gyanesh Kumar and his predecessor Rajiv Kumar, to whom the complaints were submitted, is suspicious, says Saurabh Bharadwaj

New Delhi: A day after Rahul Gandhi's press conference on 'vote theft', the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stepped up pressure on the Election Commission, accusing former Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and his successor Gyanesh Kumar of not acting on its complaints in January this year about the deletion of 42,000 names in New Delhi constituency ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections.

Addressing a press conference here, AAP Delhi president Saurabh Bharadwaj cited a response received by one Rishikesh Kumar under the RTI on September 9 to say that the Election Commission has made it clear that "no action is pending" on the part of the poll body on complaints filed by then Chief Minister Atishi and party supremo Arvind Kejriwal.

However, the EC rejected the charges and posted the letter sent to Atishi on 'X' saying, "...ECI had sent a detailed reply of 76 pages consisting of 7 annexures including reports of CEO/DEO on 13 January, 2025 to Atishi, the then CM of Delhi."

Bharadwaj claimed that the role of both Rajiv Kumar, to whom the complaints were submitted, and Gyanesh Kumar is "suspicious", as they did not act on the complaints. "Without doing anything on the complaints, the file has been closed. This is an organised racket. A loot of our democracy is happening," he alleged.

He said the Election Commission refused to provide the name of the person or authority probing their complaint, as well as file notings, on action taken, among other things, under the RTI, citing that it has no relationship to any public activity or interest.

The RTI response also said there was "no information available" whether an FIR was filed, whether the matter was forwarded to any other department and the recorded reasons for not taking action, he said.

Rahul on Thursday accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of stonewalling Karnataka CID’s request for information held by the poll body that could help identify the culprits who sought illegal deletion of around 6,000 votes in Karnataka’s Aland Assembly constituency.

Bharadwaj said in the New Delhi Assembly constituency alone, 42,000 votes were deleted out of 1.48 lakh in one go in late 2024, and another 6,100 were removed later. He also claimed that for the past 11 years, a "systematic conspiracy of vote theft" had been murdering democracy across the country.

"I want to tell the people of the country that the very thing Gandhi said was already said with evidence by Kejriwal on December 19, 2024, two months before the Delhi elections," he said, adding Atishi and Kejriwal had written multiple letters to the Election Commission.

He also found fault with the Election Commission's response to Gandhi's claims, saying that the poll body is "acting like a troll", giving fodder to the "BJP troll army". They are trying to dilute the issue, and a constitutional body acting like a troll is shameful, he alleged.