Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Nov 8: A police complaint has been filed in northeast Delhi against a booth-level agent (BLA) for allegedly submitting 36 fraudulent Form 7 applications seeking deletion of names from the electoral rolls in the Mustafabad constituency.

The complaint was lodged on Friday by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) of Mustafabad. A senior police officer confirmed that the complaint had been received and said an investigation was under way.

“We are verifying all the facts and will also question the person concerned. Further action will be taken accordingly,” the officer said.

Delhi Congress leader Ali Mehdi, however, alleged that the person named in the complaint was a BJP-appointed booth-level agent. He claimed that he had submitted a complaint on October 31 and personally handed over a copy to the Chief Electoral Officer, but the matter was formally registered only after a week.

Mehdi alleged that his complaint had specifically named 14 booth-level agents suspected of involvement in similar cases. He said he was conducting door-to-door verification at addresses where BLAs had marked voters as deceased.

According to Mehdi, he had so far identified two cases in which people declared dead in the applications were actually alive. He also said he was considering filing a writ petition in the Supreme Court next week over the alleged irregularities.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor denied that the party had submitted any such forms. He said the responsibility for examining and verifying every Form 7 application rested with the Booth Level Officer concerned before a voter's name could be deleted.

“The BJP, as a party, has not submitted any such forms,” Kapoor said.

The controversy comes amid concerns over alleged irregularities in the submission of Form 7 applications during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

On October 30, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission to examine allegations of irregularities involving the bulk submission of Form 7 applications during the electoral roll revision exercise in Uttar Pradesh.

Form 7 is used to raise objections to the inclusion of a name in the electoral roll or seek deletion of an existing entry. The allegations in Delhi have brought renewed attention to the verification process and safeguards against wrongful deletion of voters' names.