TMC raises concerns over ‘ghost voters’, duplication of ID numbers

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Tuesday raised concerns about the inclusion of ‘ghost voters’ and duplication of voter ID card numbers with the Election Commission.

It urged the panel to keep the voters list of 2024 Lok Sabha elections as the base year for revision of electoral rolls for the West Bengal Assembly poll in 2026.

The delegation, led by the party’s chief whip in Lok Sabha, Kalyan Banerjee, Kolkata mayor and MLA Firhad Hakim and three more MLAs, met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi.

The party members raised concerns about the sudden surge in voters aged 50 years or above and exclusion of new voters during the roll revision before the Assembly or Lok Sabha polls. They added that political parties should be informed if any such voters (of higher age group) were being added in the voter list.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that a scheduled meeting between the poll panel and the Congress on July 2 had to deferred.

According to the EC sources, the poll body had received an “urgent” request for a meeting on July 2 from the Congress' legal counsel on behalf of many political parties, regarding the special intensive revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls.

The Commission, sources informed, had sought confirmation from these political parties for the proposed meeting on July 2. However it did not receive any confirmation, thus the meeting had to be deferred, sources added.

The opposition has been raising objections to the SIR exercise in poll-bound Bihar, ever since they were announced last week. They had objected to the EC seeking documents of proof of place or date of birth from voters not originally listed in the state's electoral rolls, which were last prepared in 2003.

The Opposition has been raising objections to the SIR exercise in the poll-bound Bihar, ever since they were announced last week.

They had objected to the EC seeking documents of proof of place or date of birth from voters not originally listed in the state’s electoral rolls, which were last prepared in 2003.

Following a political brouhaha, the EC had clarified that voters,whose names are mentioned in the 2003 list, were not allowed to give no additional documents. Even first-time voters only have to refer to the extract of the 2003 data, where their parents’ names are included, the EC had added.