Uttar Pradesh’s chief electoral office issued an apology on Tuesday regarding the controversial comments made over allegations of caste bias over an erroneous voter slip.
On X, a post from the UP CEO says that the outrage over the comments from the official account has been “well noted.”
“The tone and tenor and the acerbic nature of the comments in the quoted post of this handle is not in line with the nature of communication expected from this official handle. The genuine outrage generated by the comments in the post has been well noted. We offer our sincere apologies to the persons shocked and offended by it. The apology comes after Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh flagged erroneous names in voter slips. In response to Singh’s allegations, the CEO’s office made objectionable remarks. “In the voter list for the recent Legislative Council elections, there is also a bizarre name: ‘Ram ne Sharma ko mara. Computers/software are not casteist. It is acceptable that we made a mistake, but fortunately, even during the mistake, there was no discrimination based on caste. We must also thank God that Ram did not kill any minority. Otherwise, in addition to being casteist, there would also be an accusation of being communal,” the poll body wrote on X. Flagging the issues in the voter roll, Singh also alleged that UP Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa was acting as a “BJP agent. “The Election Commission’s remark — that ‘the software is not casteist,’ and the comment that ‘thankfully, Ram did not kill any member of a minority community, otherwise there would have been accusations of communalism’ — proves that an agent of the BJP is occupying a constitutional position.
Our communication henceforth will be decorous and formal,” said the statement issued by the state poll body. Singh claimed that the electoral rolls contained absurd entries, such as “Ram ne Yadav ko maara” (Ram killed Yadav), the father of “Narendra Yadav” being listed as “B. Com.,” and the name of “Mohammad Iqbal Beg” being recorded as “Mohammad Iqbal bheekh maangte hain”. With such an official in place, fair elections are not possible in Uttar Pradesh; strict action must be taken against him,” said Singh during a press conference in Lucknow.
