By Aditya Menon
India, the world’s largest democracy, is in danger. Efforts are being made to take away the right to vote from people based on religion. This is being done in three ways and in several states across the country.
Method 1: Form 7
To understand this, look at two reports by The Quint. According to a report by my colleague Himanshi Dahiya, an attempt was made to remove hundreds of Muslim voters from the voter list using Form 7 in Alwar, Rajasthan.
Form 7 is the form through which you can raise questions about any voter. In Alwar, this form was used to target Muslim voters. It is said that most of the complaints were filed by people associated with the BJP.
Similarly, a report by The Quint’s Eshwar states that in Chandauli, Uttar Pradesh, an anonymous envelope was sent to a BLO (Booth Level Officer), asking them to remove seven Muslim voters from the list. In Chandauli, six BLOs were given different forms to remove Muslim voters. Some of these forms turned out to be completely fake. The people whose names were used to fill out these forms told The Quint that they did not file any complaints.
Such reports have also come from West Bengal, Gujarat, and Assam. The common points in all these reports are: efforts are being made to remove Muslim voters from the voter list, and forms are being filled out in a fraudulent manner.
At least, thanks to the honesty of some BLOs and independent media reports, vote theft was prevented in these areas. But it is also possible that vote theft is still continuing in many places.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.