Dual voter row: Is Prashant Kishor listed as voter in both Bihar and Bengal? EC claims one address linked to TMC HQ

NEW DELHI: Jan Suraaj Party leader Prashant Kishor is simultaneously registered as a voter in Bihar and West Bengal, said an election official on Tuesday, quoted by PTI.

Kishor, who leads the Jan Suraaj Party, is participating in the Bihar assembly elections.


Official documents, cited by PTI, reportedly show Kishor is listed as a voter at 121, Kalighat Road in West Bengal, which serves as the Trinamool Congress headquarters in Kolkata's Bhabanipur constituency, represented by chief minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee.

"His polling station is listed as St Helen School on B Ranishankari Lane," the official added.

Kishor previously served as a political consultant for the TMC during West Bengal's 2021 assembly elections.

The official revealed that in Bihar, Kishor is registered in the Kargahar assembly segment within Sasaram parliamentary constituency, Rohtas district, with his designated polling station at Madhya Vidyalaya, Konar.

The official further referenced Section 17 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which prohibits voter registration in multiple constituencies. "Section 18, meanwhile, prohibits multiple entries within the same constituency. Electors are required to file Form 8 to transfer their enrolment when they change residence," he pointed out.

The Election Commission (EC) has acknowledged duplicate voter entries as a persistent problem, citing this as a reason for implementing the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls nationwide.

The SIR initiative, which began in Bihar, concluded with updated rolls published on September 30, eliminating approximately 68.66 lakh entries, including about seven lakh instances of multiple voter registrations.

Select The Times of India as your preferred source on Google Search