Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has urged the Election Commission to link voter lists with Aadhaar and make biometric verification mandatory
at polling booths, alleging widespread irregularities in Uttar Pradesh’s electoral rolls. Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, he accused the BJP of vote fixing through the Special Intensive Revision and called for technology to identify duplicate entries and safeguard electoral integrity. Yadav urged the Election Commission to deploy technology, including fingerprint scanning, to identify duplicate registrations and ensure greater accuracy in electoral rolls. Yadav further said that the voter lists should be linked with Aadhaar, and biometric reading devices should be available at every booth and this should not be optional. The SP chief claimed that his party had examined voter records and found instances in which the same names appeared multiple times across different polling booths and districts. Citing examples, Yadav alleged that a voter identified as Sunita, wife of Rajesh and aged 42, had 420 entries in the records examined by his party. He claimed that searches for the same name across UP returned with 2,341 entries. The SP president questioned how such discrepancies could appear in electoral records and called on the EC to use technological tools to identify and remove duplicate or incorrect entries. Yadav said that the Election Commission had started taking action after opposition parties highlighted alleged irregularities, but maintained that the poll body needed to do more to protect the integrity of voter lists. Yadav further said that if the Aadhaar linking is not implemented, it will raise questions about the intentions of the Election Commission and the BJP as they don't want voters and voter lists to be properly identified. The SP chief said his party would continue scrutinising electoral rolls and bring suspected discrepancies to the Election Commission’s attention. Meanwhile, Election Commission continued with their action in UP following laxity by the officials in the election process. ECI suspended six officials from Agra for their laxity during the Agra Division Teachers' constituency elections. A total of two Sector Magistrates, two Inspectors and two Sub-inspector were suspended by the ECI. The UP CEO also ordered an FIR to be lodged in a case pertaining to the alleged forged signatures of Nand Lal on 26 Form-7 applications seeking voter deletion in Sultanpur district of UP. As per the UP CEO, none of the 26 Form-7 were approved by the officials and they have removed concerning BLO from the election duty. The Samajwadi party flagged this issue during a press conference on October 15.
