The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday reiterated its allegations of “vote theft” in the February Delhi assembly elections, accusing the Election Commission (EC) of covering up irregularities and withholding information on large-scale voter deletions.
Addressing a press conference, AAP’s Delhi unit Chief Saurabh Bharadwaj claimed that 42,000 voters had been removed from the rolls in the high-profile New Delhi constituency, where AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal contested against BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma and Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit. Kejriwal eventually lost by 4,089 votes.
Bharadwaj said that multiple letters written by Kejriwal and then chief minister Atishi in January—flagging fraudulent voter additions and deletions—went unanswered, while RTI applications seeking details were dismissed as “not related to public activity or interest.” “This clearly shows the role of the Chief Election Commissioner is suspicious. The entire commission is trying to cover up the vote theft,” he alleged.
The Election Commission, however, rejected the accusations as “incorrect and baseless.” In a detailed response posted on X, the poll body said it had issued a 76-page reply with seven annexures, including reports from the Chief Electoral Officer and District Election Officer, to Atishi on January 13. It stressed that all actions were taken in accordance with the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and that complaints of fraudulent voter applications had been forwarded to the police under Section 31 of the Act.
According to the EC, 6,166 requests to delete voters in the New Delhi constituency had been carefully scrutinized, with only genuine deletions approved. It also noted that 64 percent of the 327 applications for inclusion (Form 6) had been rejected due to insufficient documentation, indicating “multi-level scrutiny and field verification.”
Reacting to the EC’s statement, Bharadwaj demanded that the commission produce a copy of the FIRs registered in the matter. “It has been eight months—by now, a chargesheet should have been filed. If an affidavit is required, I am ready to submit one. We are not afraid of frivolous prosecution by the government,” he said.
The controversy echoes similar charges made earlier this week by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who accused Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar of shielding those behind “vote theft” and alleged systematic deletion of Congress voters in Karnataka. The EC had dismissed Gandhi’s remarks as “devoid of merit.”
The issue has resurfaced as AAP, which managed to secure only 22 of the 70 seats in the February polls while the BJP returned to power with 48, continues to question the integrity of the electoral process in the capital.
