The UP Chief Electoral Officer attributed the errors to a software glitch, saying steps were being taken to prevent recurrence. (Image: X)

New Delhi: Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh on Monday took on the Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEOUP) for posting weird comments with regard to mistakes in names in voter slips.

On a post by AAP leader Sanjay Singh with regard to a voter slip saying “Ram ney Yadav ko mara” in which the Rajya Sabha MP questioned if the computer was casteist, the CEOUP handle on X pointed out that there were similar mistakes in other voter slips that read “Ram ney Sharma ko mara”. The handle further said that “Thank God Ram did not hit any minority person else then it would have been accused of being communal.”

The CEOUP had earlier said that such mistakes were due to auto-translation by the EC portal which translated Ramhit Yadav to “Ram ney Yadav ko mara.”

“Why did Ram kill a "Yadav" specifically? Why didn't Ram kill a Singh, Pathak, Asthana, Sharma, Rai, or Bisht? Is your computer deeply casteist? Are you pushing some party's agenda?” Mr Singh said while quoting his party colleague Rajesh Yadav on the issue.

Clarifying on the strange names on the voters slips for Uttar Pradesh’s Legislative Council polls, office of the UP Chief Electoral Officer (CEOUP) on Monday said on X that the software had a glitch but then went on to say, “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.”

Ms Shrinate reacted sharply to this CEOUP post and questioned, “Who is running this handle? Anyway, as such you people have no credibility left. The little bit of confusion that exists - this handle is clearing it up all by itself!” she said while accusing the UP poll body of siding with the ruling BJP in the state.

Meanwhile, the CEOUP said that the reasons for such bizarre names making it to the voter list are being looked into and appropriate action is being taken to prevent any recurrence. On the issue of the names of multiple voters and their relatives being the same in the list, the CEO clarified that there is a possibility of people with same names having the same set of names for relatives as well and entries cannot be considered duplicate merely on the basis of similarity in names. “The Election Commission of India (ECI) is continuously working to identify, verify, and remove actual duplicate entries by following the due legal process,” the CEO said.

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