BJP MLA Arvind Bellad on Friday stated that the party workers were engaged in a drive to collect information for the entry of new voters in the electoral list, but deletion of the names of only minority community members was a false allegation.
"Deletions have taken place everywhere, including my constituency. A total of 586 voters are deleted in Ward No. 33 alone. We have brought it to the notice of the officials concerned, and our party workers will check whether such deletions are genuine or not," he said.
BJP workers are collecting information with a purpose to register new voters, as per the permission given by the Election Commission for political parties to appoint BLA 2, he added. Such information is given to the officials concerned, and they would add to the voters' list or not after the verification, he noted.
Observing that Aadhaar linking and proper verification would help to remove unauthorised voters, Bellad said, a verification is also needed to ensure that genuine voters are not removed.
Addition and deletion in the voters' list is a continuous process. The information available now regarding the deletions is a draft list. Political parties and individuals can file objections, he added.
He also termed the allegation of deletion of possible anti-BJP voters in his constituency as baseless.
Private agencies conduct pre-poll opinion survey for TVs and newspapers, and I do not know who were conducting such a survey on Thursday, he said, in reply to Congress leaders' allegation after they caught three persons allegedly engaged in a survey collecting voters' information.