The district election officer for the New Delhi Assembly constituency on Monday raised concerns about “political interference” and “operational disruptions”, claiming that the Aam Aadmi Party had made attempts to “exert pressure” on him, The Indian Express reported.

In a letter to the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer Alice Vaz, district election officer Sunny Kumar Singh alleged that Chief Minister Atishi had been calling for meetings without specifying an agenda, which raised concerns about potential political interference, ANI reported.

Aam Aadmi Party leaders Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh had been frequently visiting his office asking for personal details of objectors to the revision of electoral rolls, the poll official alleged.

The details are not mandated to be shared as per the guidelines of the Election Commission, the officer was quoted as saying.

The national capital’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party rejected the allegations.

The Assembly polls in Delhi are expected to take place in February. The Election Commission is expected to announce the schedule on Tuesday.

Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Parvesh Verma will be contesting against Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency. Kejriwal, a former chief minister, has held the seat since 2013.

The letter by the New Delhi district election officer came after the Election Commission released its revised voter list for the national capital. The revised electoral roll led the Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP to trade barbs.

The Aam Aadmi Party alleged that a “large scale fraud” was taking place in the addition and deletion of voters from the list in his New Delhi constituency.

The Delhi unit of the BJP claimed that the Kejriwal-led party had failed to “register fake voters” this time, The Indian Express reported.

Conspiracy to manipulate polls, alleges Atishi

Atishi on Monday wrote to the chief election commissioner and sought another round of verification of the deletion of voters in the New Delhi constituency.

The chief minister said that according to the rules, when deletion requests are more than 2%, the election registration officer must personally verify each request.

“These rules have to be followed in this case as more than 2% votes are sought to be deleted in New Delhi,” she said. “However, these rules are not being followed.”

She alleged: “There is a conspiracy to manipulate the election [in the New Delhi constituency] by adding about 10% new voters and deleting 5.7% voters.”

Final voter list published

The chief electoral officer of Delhi published the final electoral roll on Monday, showing the number of voters in the national capital at 1.5 crore. Of these, 1.6 lakh (1.09%) names were added after the publication of the draft roll on October 29.

The official added that there had been an “unprecedented” rush for the registration of new voters since December 16, with more than five lakh applications having been received during the period.

“This trend of unprecedented increase of form-6 that too after 20 days of the last date of receiving claims and objections...is unexpected and needs greater scrutiny,” the officer said.

On December 13, the Election Commission instructed the Delhi chief electoral officer to cross-check all deletions in polling stations where more than 2% of the electors had been removed from the voters’ list.

The instructions came hours after the BJP submitted a memorandum to the poll panel requesting the removal of alleged undocumented migrants and “ghost voters” from the electoral rolls of the national capital.

On December 11, the Aam Aadmi Party had also urged the poll panel not to undertake mass deletion of voters from the list before the polls.

On December 6, Kejriwal claimed that the BJP had asked the poll panel to delete the names of thousands of voters from the electoral rolls ahead of the polls.

He claimed that his party had investigated a few names that the BJP sought to delete in a particular constituency and found that several of them were Aam Aadmi Party supporters.