Miffed at raids by Delhi Police on its call centers, the workers of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, sat on a protest outside the Election Commission on Friday to register their protest. Sisodia minced no words in alleging that raids were being conducted on call centers hired by the party to make people aware that their names had been deleted from the voters’ lists.
Sisodia claimed that even after he met the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora to lodge a complaint against the Delhi police for raiding AAP’s call centers, another raid was conducted.
“After our meeting with the CEC (on Friday), we were assured that he will look into the matter but within an hour we see that a fourth raid is conducted on the call centers,” Sisodia said outside the EC, adding this was the fourth raid on the call center in four consecutive days.
Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal also questioned the CEC. “Why is CEC raiding our call centres and asking for our data? What is our crime? Pl tell our crime at least,” he said in a tweet. Kejriwal also urged all party MLAs to join the protest outside the Election Commission.”Police has raided without any search warrant and is barging into server rooms and interrogating all call center agents. What is going on? What is the crime?” he tweeted.
“We need an answer. What is our fault that we are being raided,” he said in another tweet. Sisodia was joined by other party members, including Lok Sabha candidates Atishi, Raghav Chadha and senior leader Sanjay Singh. The AAP alleged that BJP got more than 30 lakh voters’ names deleted in Delhi.
Atishi, AAP’s Lok Sabha candidate from East Delhi seat said, “They are waiting outside Election Commission till CEC meets them. “It is responsibility of EC to ensure free and fair elections and not let BJP’s Delhi police intimidate our call centres,” she said.
Earlier, BJP leaders had earlier met the CEC and alleged that the AAP was making “misleading” phone calls about the city’s electoral rolls.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls scheduled to begin on April 11, the Election Commission had directed the police to take “necessary action” against people making such calls.
The AAP leaders asserted that they were responsible for hiring the call centre employees to make people aware that names had been deleted from voters’ lists and the police should question the leaders instead of the workers.
“They are not making proxy calls, they have been hired by the Aam Aadmi Party, we have entered into an agreement with them to do it,” Sisodia said after meeting at the EC.
