LUCKNOW, Aug. 22 -- Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday accused the BJP and election authorities of trying to manipulate records, saying that out of 18,000 affidavits submitted by his party, only 14 had received what he called "half-baked and baseless" clarifications. He slammed the Election Commission of India (ECI) for terming his complaint about irregularities in electoral rolls in various districts of UP as "baseless and misleading". The SP chief has been targeting the ECI over alleged voter list anomalies in the 2022 UP Assembly polls, claiming the poll body and DMs are now in a confrontation over the issue. DMs of Jaunpur, Kasganj and Barabanki have publicly refuted his charges of wrongful deletion of voters' names. "From the Election Commission to the district magistrate, and from the circle officer to the lekhpal, even after all their manipulations, the 'BJP-Election Commission-District Magistrate trio' has only managed to provide 'half-baked, baseless' explanations for just 14 out of the 18,000 affidavits we submitted," he stated in a post on X. "Even if we subtract those 14 from the 18,000 affidavits, 17,986 still remain to be accounted for. This is the math of justice," he added. "The BJP had snatched the voting rights of the PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) community by dividing or temporarily suppressing their votes, but now the community has resolved to permanently remove the BJP. No suppression of rights, no voter fraud and no vote manipulation. This time it will be our PDA government," Yadav said. The row between the ECI and the SP chief started after the press conference of chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on August 17, in which Kumar said that the commission had not received any affidavits from Uttar Pradesh or from Yadav. Replying to the CEC's statement, the SP chief on Monday distributed copies of affidavits to media persons in the Parliament complex. "The affidavits have been filed with the ECI, alleging large-scale voter deletions and irregularities in UP during the 2022 assembly polls," Yadav said. The affidavits, according to Yadav, related to anomalies in various constituencies. He said these documented cases of voter deletions, which, he alleged, were carried out in a targeted manner against certain communities. "Communities like Maurya, Pal, Baghel and Rathore have seen voter deletions aimed at weakening their political impact. In some seats, we lost by narrow margins, and these deletions played a direct role," he said. After Yadav's allegations, the ECI moved into action mode on Tuesday. DMs of various districts were directed to probe into the complaint and submit a reply. DMs of Lucknow, Kasganj, Jaunpur and Barabanki replied to the complaint on Wednesday stating that the names of the voters were deleted from the electoral rolls due to death, migration, while some voters were listed twice on the voter list and one name was deleted as per rules, they said. Replying to the DMs' statements, Yadav, in a post on X on Wednesday, stated: "The public has an innocent question for the DMs: why did the response come after so many years?" "The way the DMs of Kasganj, Barabanki and Jaunpur have suddenly become overly active regarding our 18,000 affidavits has proven one thing: the Election Commission's claim that "the affidavit issue is false," meaning no affidavits were received, has turned out to be a lie," he added. "If no affidavits were received at all, then what are these DMs responding to? Now, the involvement of these DMs, who are giving superficial responses to merely fulfill formalities, should also be investigated. The court should take cognizance; either the Election Commission or the DMs are surely in the wrong, aren't they?" he asked....