Lucknow: Armed with statistics, case studies of booths and data analysis of randomly selected assembly constituencies, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday accused the BJP of misusing ‘logical discrepancy’ clause and Form 7 to plunder PDA votes under the garb of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls underway in UP.Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, Akhilesh announced that his party was now seeking an appointment with the Election Commission so that a delegation of its MLAs could present the documents related to rampant misuse of Form 7 and the ‘logical discrepancy’ clause and seek EC’s help to check the anomaly.“The targeted manner in which mass deletion of PDA votes is being sought at a particular booth through Form 7 which are more than often signed in bulk by one person only, it appears that the SIR data is being shared with the BJP which has hired agencies to target booths,” Akhilesh said, adding that the deletion of votes which started by misuse of Form 7 has now spread to rampant misuse of the ‘logical discrepancy’ clause of the EC.“It seems this ‘logical discrepancy’ clause – which has been introduced for the first time – has been done to target PDA voters only,” he claimed. To buttress his charge, Akhilesh provided details of a constituency in Ayodhya where 95,000 notices have been issued under ‘logical discrepancy’ head alone. The SP chief cited specifics of a booth in Ayodhya where notices have been issued to a total of 181 voters, of whom around 76% are those from the PDA community — Pichrde (backwards), Dalits, and Alpsankhyak (minorities). Of these, 46% of them are either Yadavs or Muslims. “The pattern is the same across the state. We don’t have the wherewithal like the required technology or the EC data of SIR, else we can prove that the situation is the same or maybe even worse elsewhere,” Akhilesh said.To back his charge that BJP has assigned tasks to DMs associated with SIR, Akhilesh said his party had showcased the ‘expose’ related to Nand Lal of Jaisinghpur Assembly constituency in Sultanpur district. As many as 26 forms signed by Nand Lal were submitted with the BLO for deletion of votes of his neighbours. When Nand Lal cannot read or write, how did he sign the Form 7 remains unanswered. “The DM has not taken any note of it. Why was it not investigated and FIR lodged in the case,” Akhilesh asked.Citing instances of criminal misuse of Form 7, Akhilesh cited the instance where this form had forged signatures of local SP leaders seeking deletion of names of party supporters itself. “Just imagine, in Sikandarpur constituency of Ballia, a BLO struck off 126 votes, including the name of our MLA Rizvi’s wife.Explaining rampant misuse of Form-7, Akhilesh provided statistics of a booth where 47 Form 7 were submitted by SP, 1,729 by the BJP, and 1,28,659 by unidentified people. “The figures say it all. Who are these over 1.28 lakh unidentified people who are pursuing deletion of voter names,” Akhilesh asked.
