Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has rejected Form-7 applications seeking the deletion of 26 voters’ names from the electoral roll in Sultanpur after the forms carried signatures attributed to individuals named Nand Lal.
A case has also been registered against the Booth Level Officer (BLO) concerned for alleged negligence.
The action follows complaints by the Samajwadi Party (SP), which alleged that forged signatures were used to remove voters’ names from the .
In a statement issued on Monday, the CEO’s office said, “A report has been obtained from the District Election Officer, Sultanpur, regarding the allegations made by the Samajwadi Party during a press conference on October 15 regarding a conspiracy to get a voter’s name removed by submitting ‘Form-7′ with a forged signature of Nand Lal.”
According to the report, Form-7 applications bearing signatures attributed to Nand Lal were submitted to the BLO at Booth No. 96 in the Sadar Assembly constituency of Sultanpur. The applications sought the deletion of 26 voters’ names from the electoral roll.
The forms were found to be incomplete as they did not contain essential details, including the applicant’s name, Voter ID number and mobile number. As a result, the BLO did not process the applications further, the CEO’s office said.
However, the BLO was found to have acted negligently by accepting the incomplete forms without verifying the applicant’s identity. The official has since been removed from all election-related duties, according to the statement.
A case was registered against the BLO at Gosaiganj police station on October 24 under various sections of the law, the CEO’s office added.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh CEO Navdeep Rinwa clarified in a post on X in Hindi that similar names alone do not establish duplicate entries in electoral rolls.
“The names of multiple voters and their relatives (father/husband/wife/legal guardian) may be the same in the same assembly constituency or in different constituencies. Entries cannot be considered duplicate entries merely on the basis of similarity in names. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is continuously working to identify, verify, and remove actual duplicate entries by following the due legal process,” Rinwa said.