Hyderabad, Oct. 14 -- Uttar Pradesh's chief electoral officer went on video to call a news report false, and ended up confirming its most damning finding: 85,854 voters were put up for deletion on forms that stated no reason.

Navdeep Rinwa dismissed the Reporters Collective's latest report as full of "falsehoods and inaccuracies" on X within minutes of its publication on Friday, October 9, and promised a rebuttal. That evening he released a video calling it "misleading". According to the Collective, the video itself confirmed its central finding: software used by the Election Commission of India (ECI) forced election officers in the state to sign 85,854 forms deleting voters without stating a reason during the Special Intensive Revision ...