Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa on Tuesday issued an apology for his office’s “sarcastic” response to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh on social media over caste bias allegations, after an erroneous voter slip entry.
In a post on X, he said the language and tone of the post did not conform with the nature of communication expected from the poll body. The UP CEO said the outrage generated by the social media post had been “duly noted” and that future communication would be polite and formal.
“We sincerely apologise to those who are surprised and upset by this. From now on, our communication will be polite and formal,” he said.
“The language, tone and sharp nature of the comments in the quoted post of this handle are 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 duly noted,” the UP CEO said.
The development came a day after Sanjay Singh questioned Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over an erroneous entry in a voter slip in which “Ramhit Yadav” became “Ram ne Yadav ko Maara”.
In the post on X in Hindi, Sanjay Singh said, “Gyanesh Kumar ji, why did Ram hit only a Yadav? Why did Ram not hit any Singh, Pathak, Asthana, Sharma, Rai or Bisht? Is your computer casteist? Are you running the agenda of any political party?”
In a sarcastic reply to Sanjay Singh, the UP CEO’s official X handle said had the entry read that Ram hit a minority, the authorities would have been accused of communalism too.
“A strange name, ‘Ram ne Sharma ko Maara’, is also present in the voter list of the recent Legislative Council elections. Computers/software are not casteist,” the UP CEO said.
“We accept that an error was made, but fortunately, even while making the error, no caste discrimination took place. Thank God that Ram did not hit a minority. Otherwise, besides being accused of casteism, we would have also faced allegations of communalism,” he said.
The exchange comes days after instances of erroneous entries in electoral records were flagged, raising questions over the computer software used to prepare voter lists.
Later, the UP CEO said some “bizarre-looking names” had appeared in the voter list during the recently held Legislative Council elections, adding that the reasons behind such mistakes were being looked into and appropriate action taken to prevent the recurrence of such errors.