New Delhi | September 2026: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has targeted the BJP over the alleged deletion of the name of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from the electoral rolls. Delhi AAP president Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that the BJP had got the names of Kejriwal and his family members removed from the voter list.
“If this is not the case, then how could the Election Commission fail to map the names of Arvind Kejriwal, a three-time Delhi Chief Minister and Magsaysay Award winner, and his family members?” Bharadwaj asked. He also questioned how Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and ministers Kapil Mishra, Ashish Sood and Ravindra Indraj were able to retain voter registrations at their residential addresses despite living in government accommodation.
Bharadwaj said the notice issued to Kejriwal raises serious questions over what he described as an attempt by the Election Commission and the BJP to provide legal cover to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.
Addressing a press conference at the AAP headquarters on Sunday, Bharadwaj said Kejriwal had been served a notice under the SIR process because his name, along with those of his wife and children, could allegedly not be mapped.
“If the SIR process is raising questions about the mapping of a person who studied at IIT Kharagpur, worked at Tata, cleared the UPSC and became an IRS officer, won the Magsaysay Award and served as Delhi Chief Minister three times, then what will happen to an ordinary person?” he asked.
Bharadwaj said ordinary citizens often have neither contacts nor networks or access to the media to raise their concerns.
He claimed that when an AAP delegation met the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer, two other officials were also present. According to Bharadwaj, the party had warned the CEO that the officials' approach could undermine the process.
He said AAP had asked the CEO how the Election Commission could delete the vote of a tenant who had moved from house number 10 to the neighbouring house number 11 when the Booth Level Officer (BLO) was aware of the change in residence.
Bharadwaj claimed the CEO agreed that a new form should be provided in such cases. However, he alleged that the officials accompanying the CEO immediately said that the SIR form would only be provided to people who continued to live at their previous address.
According to Bharadwaj, the officials clarified that even if a person had shifted to the house opposite, the form would not be issued, resulting in the deletion of the person's vote. He claimed that around one-third of Delhi's votes had been deleted under the category of shifted voters. He further alleged that around 10 lakh votes had already been deleted during the pre-SIR exercise, taking the total to nearly 43 per cent.
Bharadwaj also questioned the voter registrations of several BJP leaders. He asked whether Chief Minister Rekha Gupta actually lives in Shalimar Bagh and questioned how the BLO was able to locate her there. He alleged that BJP minister Kapil Mishra lives in government accommodation but has his vote registered in Ghonda, Yamuna Vihar.
Similarly, Bharadwaj questioned how Education Minister Ashish Sood, who he said lives in a government bungalow in Chanakyapuri, has his vote registered in A-Block, Janakpuri. He also said minister Ravindra Indraj had been living in a government residence for around one-and-a-half years, while his voter registration was in Rohini Sector 23, Bawana.
“How did the BLO not know all this, and where did the BLO meet these people?” Bharadwaj asked, describing the exercise as an alleged “fraud” in the name of SIR.
He further alleged that the consequences of the exercise were being borne by poor citizens who work hard to support their families in Delhi.
Bharadwaj claimed that deletion of voter cards could also affect access to certain government services. He alleged that families could face difficulties in obtaining benefits and accessing healthcare schemes, while children could face problems with school admissions.
He also alleged that poor women working as domestic help could lose access to benefits linked to voter identification and claimed that this could impose additional financial burdens on their families.
Bharadwaj further accused the BJP of first seeking votes by promising financial assistance of Rs 2,500 and subsequently deleting the names of the same voters from the electoral rolls. He questioned why people were now being asked to produce voter cards while applying for the Rs 2,500 benefit when, according to him, their voter registrations had themselves been deleted.
He alleged that the process was particularly harmful to poor voters who may not know how to get their names restored to the electoral rolls.
Bharadwaj said the issue was being raised so that it could not later be claimed that the Opposition had remained silent. “The next decision has to be taken by the people and the courts of the country,” he said.
