EC notice to Kishor over voter IDs in Bihar, West Bengal

Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor was on Tuesday served a notice over his name being reportedly registered as a voter in his home state Bihar as well as adjoining West Bengal.

However, Kishor stuck to his guns, asserting that the onus was on the EC, which "claims to have purified electoral rolls in Bihar through SIR", to have done the needful in his case.

The notice has been issued by the district election office in Rohtas district of Bihar, where Kishor has been registered as a voter in the Kargahar Assembly segment. He has been asked to respond within three days.

According to official records, Kishor is enrolled as a voter in West Bengal at 121, Kalighat Road, the address of the Trinamool Congress headquarters in Kolkata's Bhabanipur Assembly constituency, which is Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee's seat, an election official in West Bengal said.

The notice has cited a report published in a leading English daily, which has pointed out the anomaly in the case of Kishor. However, Kishor, speaking to reporters, said: "I have been a voter in Kargahar since 2019. Since I lived in Kolkata for a couple of years, I got enrolled as a voter there as well. The EC has bragged about purifying the electoral rolls in Bihar during SIR. Why did it not delete my name from one of the places?"

Indirectly charging the EC with acting at the behest of the BJP, which rules the Centre, Kishor said, "The Election Commission cannot bully me through its notice. Nor can the BJP, which is watching its leaders cower after their wrongdoings were exposed by me. The party is in power in Bihar as well as at the Centre. I challenge it to try all the aces up its sleeve." --- PTI