BY MOHAMMAD TARIQUE SALEEM
The pulse of a thriving democracy beats through the sanctity of the ballot box and the unwavering supremacy of the rule of law; when either is compromised, governance degenerates into systemic disenfranchisement and institutional coercion. Recent revelations brought forward by the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh paint an alarming portrait of administrative vulnerability, exposing a dual crisis: a brazen attempt to manipulate electoral rolls across crucial Legislative Council seats, alongside a brazen breakdown of public safety where even serving armed forces personnel are gunned down by local mafia with complete impunity.
Under the explicit directives of SP National President Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh State President Shyam Lal Pal formally submitted a detailed memorandum to the Chief Electoral Officer in Lucknow, exposing massive duplication within the voter lists for the upcoming 11 Legislative Council seats. Nowhere is this subversion clearer than in the Varanasi Division Graduate Constituency, where a 276-page evidentiary dossier documented thousands of duplicate entries.
In Mirzapur alone, single individuals, including a local BJP district office-bearer, appeared up to five consecutive times on voter rosters across individual booths. The party flagged similar vulnerabilities across 102 sensitive polling stations in districts including Lakhimpur, Sitapur, Rae Bareli, Barabanki, Hardoi, Pratapgarh, and Lucknow, urging the deployment of non-civil central forces, continuous CCTV monitoring, an official public holiday on polling day, and an unhindered counting process free from deliberate power cuts or arbitrary agent restrictions.
Simultaneously, the administration stands accused of weaponizing bureaucratic authority in the Varanasi Division Teachers’ Constituency. Despite the final publication of voter rolls, district magistrates and inspectors of schools have reportedly subjected educational institutions and SP-affiliated educators to unlawful post-publication re-verifications—violating Election Commission norms that explicitly forbid Form-7 deletions after final publication.
Compounding this democratic crisis is an acute breakdown of law and order. At the SP headquarters, family members of CISF soldier Raghvesh Singh Yadav met Akhilesh Yadav to report a gruesome assault in Ghazipur’s Bhanwarkol area. While returning home from a cricket match, the soldier was ambushed, pistol-whipped, and later shot alongside his brothers Pankaj and Rakesh by notorious local history-sheeters.
With victims battling for life in a trauma center and the accused roaming free issuing death threats, the incident underscores the terrifying collapse of citizen security. Free elections cannot survive without genuine voter registers, nor can democracy endure where criminals operate above the law. The Election Commission and state authorities must act decisively: purge bogus entries, enforce foolproof polling protocols, and arrest violent offenders immediately.
