UP Chief Electoral Officer apologizes for “tone, language and harshness” of social media posts

Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa. File | Photo credit: PTI

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday (Oct 27, 2026) apologized for the “tone” and content of social media posts posted by the polling body, following a spat over the scathing nature of the remarks, which referred to faulty voter records.

The controversy started when Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh questioned Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over an erroneous entry where ‘Ramhit Yadav’ became ‘Ram ne Yadav ko Maara’ (Ram hit Yadav) in the electoral roll of the recent Uttar Pradesh Legislative elections

UP Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa’s office attributed the error to a glitch in the translation software. The software used to prepare the electoral rolls was designed to transcribe names entered in English into Hindi, resulting in “Ramhit Yadav” being incorrectly entered as “Ram Hit Yadav”. The software interpreted the words as a sentence and translated it into “Ram ne Yadav ko Maara” in Hindi.

Mr. Singh questioned the CEC on whether the latter drives the agenda for a particular political party. “Gyaneshi Kumar, why did Ram hit only Yadav? Why did Ram not hit any Singh, Pathak, Asthan, Sharma, Rai or Bisht? Are you a computer casteist? Are you running the agenda of some political party?” the AAP leader said in a post on social media platform X.

In a scathing response, Mr. Rinwa’s office cited another case of a similar error where the name of a voter’s father, Ravi Sharma, was wrongly recorded as “Ram ne Sharma ko Maara”.

“A bizarre name, ‘Ram ne Sharma ko maara’, appeared in the electoral roll for the recent Legislative Council elections. The computers/software are not caste-based. We admit there was a mistake, but fortunately for us, even if there was a mistake, caste discrimination was not involved,” Mr Rinwa’s office said.

This was followed by another snide note from Mr. Rinwa’s office, which said that if the recording had read “Ram hits a minority”, the authorities would also be accused of communalism. “Thank God, Ram did not kill a member of the minority community. Otherwise we would have been accused of being both communal and casteist,” the note read.

The AAP MP was quick to intervene. On Monday (October 26, 2026), he held a press conference in Lucknow where he alleged that the UP Chief Electoral Officer was responding as a “BJP agent”. He also flagged other absurd entries in the electoral rolls and demanded strict action against Mr. Rinwa for inappropriate remarks.

However, on Tuesday (27 October 2026), Mr Rinwa’s office issued an apology. “The tone, language and vehemence of the comments in the quoted post from this clique do not correspond to the type of communication expected from an official clique,” reads the apology sent by X.

“The genuine outrage caused by the comments in the post has been duly noted. We sincerely apologize to those who were shocked and angered by them. From now on, our communications will be civil and formal,” Mr Rinwa’s office said.

Published – 27 Oct 2026 22:54 IST