Poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor, whose Jan Suraaj Party is contesting the Bihar Assembly elections, is registered as a voter in two states, namely – West Bengal and Bihar, a report by The Indian Express says.
In West Bengal, his name appears on the voter list with the address 121 Kalighat Road, which is the Trinamool Congress (TMC) office in Bhabanipur, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s constituency. Kishor had earlier worked as a political consultant for the TMC during the 2021 Assembly elections. His polling booth there is St. Helen School on B Ranishankari Lane.
In Bihar, Kishor is registered as a voter in Kargahar Assembly constituency, which falls under the Sasaram parliamentary seat. His polling booth is at Madhya Vidyalay in Konar village, Rohtas district, which is his paternal home.
Kishor has not responded to calls or messages about the matter, according to IE. However, a member of his team said he registered as a voter in Bihar after the Bengal elections and has applied to cancel his Bengal voter card. The current status of that application is unclear. Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer Vinod Singh Gunjiyal has also not commented on the issue.
Can a person be registered as a voter in 2 places?
According to Section 17 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, no individual can be listed as a voter in more than one constituency. Section 18 further states that a person cannot be registered more than once in the same constituency. If someone changes their residence, they must update their details using Form 8, which allows voters to shift their registration or correct errors.
However, having a name on voter lists in multiple places is not unusual. The Election Commission (EC) recently said that some people register in a new location after moving, but forget to remove their names from their old constituency’s list.
To fix this problem, the EC launched a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, starting with Bihar. In its June 24 order, the EC said that repeated voter entries have become more common due to such oversights, and the revision aims to clean up the records.
The Special Intensive Revision of Bihar’s voter list, which concluded on September 30, resulted in the removal of about 68.66 lakh names. Among these, around 7 lakh entries were found to be voters registered in more than one location. Officials have acknowledged that despite this large clean-up, duplicate names may still remain on the lists.
Questions raised over Prashant Kishor’s Bengal address
In West Bengal, questions have surfaced over the voter registration of Prashant Kishor at 121, Kalighat Road, an address that belongs to the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) office. Local TMC councillor Kajari Banerjee, who is also Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s sister-in-law, said that Kishor used to visit and sometimes stay in the building while working with the TMC during the 2021 Assembly elections. She added that she was unsure whether Kishor had enrolled himself as a voter from that address.
During the Lok Sabha elections last year, the CPI(M) had raised objections to Kishor’s voter registration at that address. Party leader Biswajit Sarkar, who serves as secretary of the Bhabanipur-2 area committee, said they had written to the Election Commission asking for Kishor’s name to be deleted from the list since he was not a resident of the area, reported IE.