Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh slams Election Commission, accuses officials of ‘vote loot’

New Delhi: Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday accused the Election Commission of failing to act against large-scale irregularities, including in the Uttar Pradesh elections, and alleged that officials colluded with the ruling BJP to “loot votes”.

The remarks came as opposition I.N.D.I.A. bloc MPs, including Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Sharad Pawar, staged a march from Parliament towards the Election Commission office, accusing the body of “poll fraud” and demanding accountability. However, the MPs, protesting against voter roll revision in Bihar, were prevented from going till the poll panel's headquarters by police which placed barricades in their way.

Addressing reporters inside Parliament complex, Yadav said the Commission had ignored repeated complaints by his party over electoral malpractice.

“It’s not the first time fingers have been raised at the Election Commission. In Uttar Pradesh elections, the SP has raised issues multiple times,” he said, recalling allegations during a recent bypoll where, according to him, the government “used officers to loot votes” and even deployed policemen in plain clothes to cast ballots.

“Our leaders and workers were stopped by force, police stopped them, and officers were posted on caste basis with instructions to ensure BJP wins under any circumstance,” Yadav claimed.

The SP chief also said his party complained about the 2022 Assembly elections, when he claimed 18,000 SP votes were deliberately deleted.

“These were people who had voted in 2019, yet in 2022 their names vanished. We gave the EC a list with affidavits, but till today no action has been taken,” he said, demanding to know what steps the poll panel had taken against the officials responsible.

Yadav said a photograph was also circulated allegedly from Rampur of a police officer pointing a revolver at voters.

“We complained even then. If this had happened under our government in UP, we would have taken action. We hope the Congress government in Karnataka will act against every official, whether BLO, SDM or district-level, who was involved in vote theft,” he said.

He urged the EC to act swiftly, saying, “Don’t move at a turtle’s pace. If the right to vote is taken away, will democracy remain? We have fast-track courts for other matters but there should be the fastest-track courts for such cases.”

SP MPs also staged a protest inside the Parliament complex over the alleged "vote loot".

Speaking at the protest, party MP Dimple Yadav said, "We want the Election Commission to wake up and acknowledge that the way votes are continuously being looted..."