Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday questioned how Yogi Adityanath knew 1.27 crore Hindu voters were deleted from electoral rolls. He alleged collusion between the Election Commission and the BJP, suggesting the poll panel shared data with the Chief Minister’s office before making it public to political parties.

The former Uttar Pradesh CM also alleged collusion between the EC and the BJP, suggesting that the poll panel may have shared its data with the state government before making it public.

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday questioned how Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath knew that the names of 1.27 crore "Hindu voters" had been deleted from the electoral rolls, as he claimed last week, and whether the Election Commission (EC) had shared its data with him or his office.

Speaking at a programme at the party office in Lucknow, Yadav accused Adityanath of invoking the issue of "infiltrators" to justify the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

"The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who kept the entire nation in a state of fear by constantly invoking the issue of infiltrators, now claims that the names of 1.27 crore Hindu voters have been cut," Yadav said.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also alleged collusion between the EC and the BJP, suggesting that the poll panel may have shared its data with the state government before making it public.

"The question arises: How do they know that the names of Hindu voters are missing? It appears that the Election Commission has shared the entire data with the chief minister or the chief minister's office. They show it to the public and political parties later, but first to the CM's office," he said.

Yadav also said that during Union Home Minister Amit Shah's visit to Lucknow for the party's state working committee meeting, BJP workers were urged to collectively ensure that 2 crore names were added to the electoral rolls.

"This is because they are aware that if the names of 1.27 crore voters have been removed, it implies that approximately 31,000 votes of theirs are missing from each assembly constituency," he said.

"This has left the BJP feeling rattled. They have now come up with something entirely new. And if we were to accept their own figure of 1.27 crore, it would mean a reduction of approximately 31,000 votes for them in every assembly constituency, which implies that they have effectively lost the election even before the voting has taken place," Yadav said.