Will do everything to nail AAP’s lies on voter deletion, says BJP

Seeks legal opinion; Kejriwal and Vijender Gupta engage in Twitter war

Terming it “large-scale fraud”, the BJP is seeking legal opinion, and hopes for the initiation of penal action against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in relation to phone calls allegedly being made by its members regarding the deletion of votes from electoral rolls.

Union Minister Vijay Goel, who took the matter to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Friday, said the BJP would “do everything possible to nail the AAP’s lies” regarding phone calls in which citizens are being told that their name has been deleted from their respective voter list “at the behest of the BJP” but Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal “got it restored”.

‘Right decision’

“There have been multiple complaints which have been made against the AAP regarding the issue and I am in the process of seeking legal opinion on which particular sections of the Indian Penal Code [IPC] can be invoked regarding such false calls which everyone in Delhi is evidently getting,” Mr. Goel told The Hindu.

“The EC has rightly decided to inform the public about the propaganda being used by the AAP against the BJP; even though we have been given to understand that the EC intends to begin an information campaign, in the form of full page ads, to inform the public about such bogus calls, we will do all we can to ensure that the guilty are punished as per the law,” Mr. Goel added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kejriwal and Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta confronted each other over the issue on Twitter. Mr. Gupta charged Mr. Kejriwal with “lying” about 24 lakh votes being deleted in Delhi over the last four years.

“Do not lie Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The 24 lakh votes have been deleted in last 10 years due to death, duplication, self-deletion through Form 7. Thirty lakh votes have been added during this period. It’s a normal process,” Mr. Gupta tweeted in Hindi.

Mr. Kejriwal retorted, “Your Election Commission has given us list of 24 lakh votes deleted in four years. The dirty game of BJP has been exposed early thats why you are so flustered. Will EC resign if I give you the list of those whose names have been deleted fraudulently [sic].”

In a statement, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari termed the Election Commission’s action “a slap” on the face of the “falsehood of Chief Minister Kejriwal”.

“The Election Commission has informed all the parties, including Arvind Kejriwal’s party, that by January 18, 2019, a total number of 9,88,925 votes have increased but Arvind Kejriwal is not ready to accept it,” Mr. Tiwari said in a statement.