UP CEO apologises for 'thank God Ram didn't hit any minority' post

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh CEO Navdeep Rinwa on Tuesday issued an apology for his office's sarcastic reply to Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh over allegations of caste bias following an erroneous voter slip entry, saying that the language and tone of the post were not in line with the nature of communication expected from the poll body.The UP CEO said the outrage generated by the social media post had been duly noted and that future communication would be polite and formal."The language, tone, and sharp nature of the comments in the quoted post of this handle are not in line with the nature of communication expected from this official handle. The genuine outrage generated by the comments in the post has been duly noted," the UP CEO said in a post on X."We sincerely apologise to those who are surprised and upset by this. From now on, our communication will be polite and formal," it added.This comes a day after Sanjay Singh questioned Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over an erroneous entry in a voter slip in which "Ramhit Yadav" became "Ram ne Yadav ko Maara".In a post on X in Hindi, Singh said, "Gyanesh Kumar ji, why did Ram hit only a Yadav? Why did Ram not hit any Singh, Pathak, Asthana, Sharma, Rai or Bisht? Is your computer casteist? Are you running the agenda of any political party?"In a sarcastic reply to Singh, the UP CEO's official X handle said that had the entry read that Ram hit a minority, the authorities would have been accused of communalism too. "A strange name, 'Ram ne Sharma ko Maara', is also present in the voter list of the recent legislative council elections. Computers/software are not casteist," the UP CEO said."We accept that an error was made, but fortunately, even while making the error, no caste discrimination took place. Thank God that Ram did not hit a minority. Otherwise, besides being accused of casteism, we would have also faced allegations of communalism," it added.The CEO's office also shared a voter slip from the recently held graduate constituency legislative council elections. The slip listed the voter's name as Ravi Sharma, while his father's name appeared as "Ram ne Sharma ko Maara".The exchange comes days after instances of erroneous entries in electoral records were flagged, raising questions over the computer software used to prepare voter lists.Later, UP CEO Navdeep Rinwa, in a post on X, said some "bizarre-looking names" had appeared in the voter list during the recently held legislative council elections."The reasons behind such mistakes are being looked into and appropriate action is being taken to prevent recurrence," the CEO said.He said "some forged voter slips" had gone viral on social media and were being displayed or circulated by several established media outlets and prominent individuals. "The person responsible for the forgery will be dealt with as per law," Rinwa added. Last week, Rinwa had explained that the software was designed to transliterate names entered in English into Hindi.However, in some cases, instead of transliterating names, it translated the words, resulting in incorrect entries. For instance, if "Ramhit Yadav" was mistakenly typed as "Ram Hit Yadav", the software translated it into Hindi as "Ram ne Yadav ko Maara" (Ram hit Yadav). He said the errors could have been corrected using the editing feature, but some remained in the final list.Another instance, in which "B.Com" was entered in place of the father's name in the electoral roll for the legislative council polls, appeared to be a case of human error or negligence, the CEO had said. Rohitashwa Ranjan is a digital journalist with The Times of India, where he decodes Indian politics as a carefully staged production with scripts, subtext and everything behind. His stories track elections, party dynamics and the things that often are buried beneath the headlines. When not parsing vote shares or alliances, he is usually reading between the lines, where the real story tends to reside.