Shillong: Nearly 4.77 million voters are off the list. The Election Commission of India dropped the names during the Special Intensive Revision exercise in Delhi. Saurabh Bharadwaj, the AAP Delhi President, blasted the move on Monday. He questioned if the commission now considers one-third of the city residents to be Bangladeshi nationals.
The purge leaves 9.75 million people on the draft roll. This out of an original 14.5 million. The exercise ran from June 30 to August 17. Workers went door-to-door to digitize records. They successfully processed about 67 percent of the total 14,510,299 electors. The remaining 4.77 million people were marked as uncollectable under the ASDDO category, which covers those who are dead, shifted, absent, or duplicates.
Bharadwaj turned his fire on the government led by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta. He demanded her resignation and an immediate new election. He argued the current administration lacks legitimacy if one-third of the population is suddenly deemed ineligible. “I think the Election Commission should drown itself in a handful of water and die,” Bharadwaj said. He also accused the government of targeting the poor to strip them of basic facilities.
The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer set a September 30 deadline for claims. Residents must file Form 6 with supporting documents to challenge their removal. Officials will handle objections and issue notices through October 29. The final electoral roll drops on November 4.
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