Akhilesh Yadav alleges ECI acting at BJP’s behest, claims multiple entries of people exist in voter list

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday (October 12, 2026) alleged that the Election Commission of India (ECI) is “acting at the behest of the BJP” and claimed that many people have multiple entries in the voter list.

Mr. Yadav was speaking to reporters at the Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport in Lucknow before leaving for Delhi to take part in a march to the Supreme Court to submit a petition on alleged “vote chori” and against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

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“The Election Commission is acting at the behest of the BJP. The BJP gets a vote registered for whosoever it chooses. If you are a BJP member, the Election Commission will register you as a voter. If you are a BJP member, you are considered an Indian citizen. If you are not a BJP member, you are not considered an Indian citizen,” Mr. Yadav said.

The SP chief claimed that one voter in Azamgarh assembly constituency in Uttar Pradesh is mentioned 10 times in the voter list.

“If this claim is incorrect, let the Election Commission and the BJP prove us wrong. There are 10 votes for a single individual in the Azamgarh assembly constituency. What should we understand about this SIR exercise? One individual will cast one vote, while the BJP will cast the remaining nine, because the BJP knows it has made 10 votes for that person,” Mr. Yadav said.

Questioning the need for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), Mr. Yadav asked why the ECI was unable to “rectify” the voter lists despite “spending crores of rupees” on such a “massive exercise” that took up “so much time of officials and political leaders”.

The SP chief also claimed that the name of Adityavardhan Srivastava of Gorakhpur appears twice in the voter list and the name of Shambhu Shankar Sharma appears four times in the voter list of Gorakhpur Urban constituency.

He also said that Nagma Rabbani’s name appears six times in the voter list, and that of Praveen Yadav appears three times in the voter list.

“It is because of this that the agitation is necessary,” Yadav said, referring to the opposition protests against the SIR and the CEC.