RC spoke to four election officials who said the system automatically generated Form 7 requests when they did not approve voters during hearings. One official told the publication that the forms were bound to carry his signature because the system operated through his credentials.
The investigation argued that the process raised questions about compliance with electoral rules, which require deletion requests to specify grounds such as death, underage status, permanent relocation, duplicate enrolment or non-citizenship. RC said the rules also require authorities to reject objections that are not submitted in the prescribed manner.
The report further found that 1,10,476 deletion requests filed by individuals were accepted after the legally prescribed deadline.
RC also flagged possible patterns of targeted deletions in the Tarabganj and Pilibhit Assembly constituencies, where it found that 90 per cent of deletion requests were directed against Muslim voters. In Tarabganj, 188 objections were filed under the name ‘Reshma’ on the same day against voters from the same polling booth, the investigation said.
The RC said it had sent detailed questions to Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa and the ECI in Delhi but had received no response by the time of publication.
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