Senior AAP leaders on Thursday asked the Election Commission to sack two key officials involved in the upcoming Assembly polls to the New Delhi seat held by party national convener Arvind Kejriwal, accusing them of illegal voter deletions.

The delegation included Kejriwal, Delhi and Punjab chief ministers Atishi and Bhagwant Mann and MP Sanjay Singh. In two memoranda they demanded action against the BJP nominee for the seat, as well as the district election officer (DEO) and the electoral registration officer (ERO) of New Delhi.

Atishi said in her memorandum to the EC: “…The number of voters sought to be deleted is 5,468, which is 5.1% of the total voters. The total number of voters sought to be added is 13,112, which is 12.26% of the total voters. Moreover, 89 objectors have filled 4,752 applications for voter deletions.

“The guidelines of the Election Commission are very clear that in case of (a) more than 2% voters being sought to be deleted from any polling booth and (b) any objector filing application for more (than) 5 deletions, the ERO will personally have to verify the applications by making field visits for the same. In case of voter addition, if more than 4% voters are being added in any polling booth, then the AERO has to personally verify the applications. Neither of these practices is being followed in the New Delhi Assembly constituency....

“Of all the objectors who came for the hearing, 100% of them denied having filed deletion applications,” she said.

After meeting the election commissioners, Kejriwal told reporters: “The DEO has surrendered to the BJP and is facilitating all the wrong deeds of the party…. We asked the EC to suspend the DEO and the ERO and transfer them.” In his memorandum, Kejriwal accused former BJP MP Parvesh Sahib Singh “Verma”, whom the party has fielded against him, of bribery.

New Delhi’s DEO Sunny Singh called the allegations of manipulation of the voters’ list “factually incorrect and unfounded” and insisted that all norms of verification were followed. He posted on X that poll officials hadn’t found Verma in violation of the poll code and that police had been asked to probe the matter.

On Thursday night, the EC directed the CEO to probe the complaints and revert with an action-taken report.