The party has sought deployment of women police personnel at polling booths to check voter-IDs of burqa-clad voters.
Ahead of polling in the sixth and seventh phases of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, which has a sizeable Muslim population in several pockets, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has written to the Election Commission seeking a check on burqa-clad voters as a measure to curb bogus voting.
The party has sought deployment of women police personnel at polling booths to check voter-IDs of burqa-clad voters.
Forty-nine constituencies spread over seven districts of Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Azamgarh, Mau and Ballia, will go to polls in the sixth phase on March 4 while voting in the seventh and last phase, which has 40 constituencies spread over seven districts, will take place on March 8.
"The request has been made to ensure fair and transparent voting at all polling booths," state BJP spokesperson Chandra Mohan said.
The letter sent on Wednesday to Chief Election Commissioner of Lucknow, says, "A large number of burqa-clad women come to cast votes in the assembly elections and to ensure proper verification, it is essential to deploy women police personnel to curb bogus voting."
BJP leaders in UP said that the party decided to make this request after finding out that bogus voting took place in many polling booths in the earlier five phases, especially at booths where minorities were in significant number. The letter has also asked the commission to ensure proper security at the booths so that fair and peaceful voting can be ensured.
BJP, state vice-president JPS Rathore, who wrote the letter, said that the party had received widespread rigging reports from the workers on the ground. He said that the party's poll agents informed him that quite often, the policemen on duty did not verify burqa-clad voters. In the absence of female officers, verification of such voters was not possible.
On being asked why BJP made the demand only at the end of the ongoing elections, Rathore said, "The issue of rigging took place from phase-1 onwards. It happened in front of the local authorities and several names were taken out from the voter list. We were expecting the local administration to take action. But because they failed to act, we have approached the chief election commissioner".
Rathore added that rules mandate arrest of bogus voters but local authorities had been going easy on such voters.
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