New Delhi: A day before the elections on 11 Member of Legislative Council (MLC) seats in Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party as well as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have levelled allegations of discrepancies in the voter list prepared by the State Election Commission.With the MLC elections for all 11 seats scheduled for Friday (October 23), from 8 am to 4 pm, the EC is in a fix in the state.The charges against the election commission come against the backdrop of recent protests seeking the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar for irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).The list for MLC polls was revised in 2025 as part of a separate exercise apart from the SIR by the state election commission with the final electoral roll released in January 2026. Polls are to be held for five graduate constituencies (Lucknow, Meerut, Agra, Varanasi and Allahabad-Jhansi) along with six teacher constituencies (Lucknow, Meerut, Agra, Varanasi, Bareilly-Moradabad and Gorakhpur-Faizabad).On Wednesday (October 21), a complaint addressed to Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa was sent on behalf of Shyam Lal Pal, Samajwadi Party’s state president, raising concerns about thousands of errors in the voter list pertaining to the Allahabad-Jhansi Division Graduates constituency.Following allegations of major blunders that have made their way into the voter list, including some absurd names, as was highlighted by Prayagraj-based journalist Ravi Raj in this video, on October 22, at 1:32 am, the X handle of Uttar Pradesh CEO responded by saying:“Information has been received from social media regarding anomalies in certain names with respect to the Allahabad-Jhansi constituency. Jhansi’s Divisional Commissioner who also happens to be the electoral officer of the region has been instructed to carry out any inquiry regarding this and a report is expected to be submitted by afternoon.”A voting slip with the elector’s name recorded as Takkar Marna. The words mean ‘to collide’, usually on purpose.There was, however, no further update on action taken by the Uttar Pradesh CEO on its X handle at the time of writing this report.The Wire spoke with Dan Bahadur Singh Madhur, national spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party, who has also submitted a complaint regarding discrepancies in MLC related voter list to the District Magistrate of Prayagraj recently.Some of the concerns flagged by the Opposition party especially in the Allahabad-Jhansi Division, comprising 2,64,233 voters, include:Election roll no. 5; Serial no. 72 – Voter no. 415 is named as ‘Ram Nay Yadav Ko Maara’ (Ram killed Yadav). Father’s name is recorded as ‘Moorkh Chandra Yadav’. Moorkh means foolish, unlikely to be a formal name for any individual.Voter no. 376 – The voter’s name is given as ‘Takkar Marna’ (colliding with someone).Voter no. 351 – The voter’s name is given as ‘Takkar Marna’ and father’s name is also mentioned as ‘Takkar Marna’.Voter no. 281 and voter no. 385 – Both the voters have been named as ‘Takkar Marna’ while their father’s name has been mentioned as Hari.Voter no. 153 (from Lucknow) – Voter’s name is given as Kajal while father’s name is recorded as ‘Takkar Marna’.Ravi Sharma [voter from Sarsawan block in Kaushambi district] – This voter with the ID no. 768 has father’s name mentioned as ‘Ram ne Sharma ko Maara’ (Ram killed Sharma, an absurdity).Voter no. 696 from Sahson (Prayagraj district) – Voter’s name is given as Narendra Yadav while his father’s name is mentioned as ‘B.Com’ – Bachelors in Commerce, a graduate level course.Voter with name as ‘Mohd Pagal Rehan’ whose father’s name has been mentioned as Mohd Hashim. ‘Pagal’ is a colloquial term for a mentally unfit person; unlikely to be a formal name of an individual.Another voter with name mentioned as ‘Moorkh Kali Devi’ with father’s name mentioned as Ramjeet Patel.“There is no count as to how many such names with errors have made it to the list. Around 20 days ago, as a party representative, I received the entire voter list from the state election commission for this area. When our workers got on to the task of preparing ‘parchi’ (voter slip) and began scrutinizing the voter list, that’s when this issue came to our knowledge”, said Daan Bahadur Singh while speaking to The Wire on phone.Also read: Pilibhit Voter Roll Irregularities: FIR Against Two SDMs, Computer Operator Over 10,470 Entries“Earlier also we had flagged errors in the list but owing to discrepancies on such a large scale, clearly they [State Election Commission] couldn’t rectify these mistakes. One of the reasons behind such anomalies or technical errors is the fact that workers deployed to prepare such lists had zero accountability. This is expected to cause serious damage to our electoral prospects”, he further added.Another absurd name on a voter slip: Faiz Abbas Ne Kaha translates to ‘Faiz Abbas Said’.Among other concerns, Samajwadi Party leaders have alleged intimidation by the local police upon voters with duplicate entries at the behest of the ruling party.“A voter by the name Manju Yadav [whose husband’s name was mentioned as Udayraj Yadav] under Mauaima police station in Prayagraj had Uttar Pradesh Police personnel arriving at her house only to be told that she can’t cast her vote due to duplication error. Now the question is even if a person’s name has been listed 4 or 5 times, shouldn’t that person be allowed to cast a vote once?”, said Daan Bahadur Singh while talking to this reporter.In a press note issued on October 21, however, Uttar Pradesh CEO did clarify that “in view of the partial clerical and printing errors no voter shall be deprived of his due right.”BJP alleges 4,000 duplicate entriesAnother delegation comprising local BJP leaders from Prayagraj also met the District Magistrate on October 21 regarding discrepancies in the voter list, The Wire has learnt.While talking about the ruling party’s concerns with respect to an estimated 4,000 duplicate entries in the voter list, Dr Shailesh Kumar Pandey, BJP Zila Mahamantri (General Secretary) in Prayagraj said, “We have sent a list of 4,000 names to the state election commission on behalf of party headquarters in Lucknow. These include those names from a certain religion and caste which appear at least twice or up to 7-8 times in the list.”The entry at Serial No. 420 says Ram Nay Maara Yadav Ko, which translates as ‘Rama Killed Yadav’, an absurdity.He said, “For instance an individual with the name Aman Yadav appears multiple times. Under Section 31 of the Representation of People Act, 1950 any individual with name listed as voter at more than one place can face penal action of imprisonment or fine.”When asked about the nature of names from a religion and caste that seem to appear repeatedly in the voter list as has been alleged by the party, Pandey told this reporter, “Duplicacy [of voter names] is maximum among Yadav and Muslim voters here. Since we sent a list from our side to the State Election Commission as well as the Election Commission of India, that’s why the Samajwadi Party has sprung into action.”“Our demand is that such voters be identified and told to cast their vote only at one booth with their vote cancelled at other places,” he said.Note that the Muslims and Yadavs are not considered a traditional vote bank of the BJP in Uttar Pradsh. A post-poll study conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies had revealed after the last Assembly election that 83% of Yadavs had voted for the Samajwadi Party in the 2022 assembly elections. While another post-poll study by Axis My India had found out that 82% Muslims had voted for the Samajwadi Party alliance in the 2022 assembly polls.Both BJP and Samajwadi Party have also raised the issue related to allocation of polling booths at distant places rather than somewhere near to the native location of a voter.“In a single family, one member has been allocated a booth 20 km away while another member has got a polling booth 35 km away. Even the election rules state [referring to Rule 13.1 of the Handbook for Returning Officers] that the distance between a polling booth and voter cannot exceed 16 km. So what kind of software was the election commission using that family members couldn’t be brought together at a single booth?” BJP general secretary Shailesh Pandey told The Wire.In yet another press note issued on October 23, the Uttar Pradesh CEO issued a clarification that “It was for the first time in history that all activities related to preparation of voter lists regarding the graduate and teacher electoral constituencies were done online. Since the website was launched for the first time, all the officials and operators were trained via this portal for the first time. Those voters with an anomaly in their names, they are 150 in number which comes to a miniscule 0.01% of the total voters.”After the elections on Friday, vote counting is scheduled for next week, on October 27.