Patna/Kolkata: Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor was 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, the former political strategist stuck to his guns, asserting that the onus was on 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 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.
“His polling station is listed as St Helen School on B Ranishankari Lane,” the official added.
During the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, Kishor had worked as a political consultant for the TMC.
In case of a change of address, a person must apply for inclusion of his name in the new place after filling up Form 8, which is a declaration that he has shifted base and consents to deletion from the voters’ list at the earlier place of residence.
The notice issued by DEO, Rohtas, from the district headquarters of Sasaram, has cited a report published in a leading English daily, which has pointed out the anomaly in the case of Kishor.
The notice points out that “Section 31 of the Representation of People Act” prohibits a person from having his name enrolled as a voter at more than one place, and that violation of the provision was “punishable with imprisonment for one year, or fine, or both”.
However, Kishor, who was away in Araria district for assembly poll campaign, remained defiant.
Speaking to reporters, he 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.”
Meanwhile, the ruling NDA as well as the opposition INDIA bloc in Bihar, where Kishor’s foray into electoral politics has vexed both rival formations, latched on to the opportunity.
Neeraj Kumar, MLC and spokesperson of JD(U), which is headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, told PTI, “It is amusing that Prashant Kishor, who has all his establishments in Delhi, and hails from Bihar, chose to get registered as a voter in West Bengal. Since when did becoming a poll strategist necessitate your being a voter in the state you are providing your services?”
The JD(U) leader added, “We suspect Kishor had tried to strike a deal with Banerjee, that after her victory in the 2021 polls, she would get him elected to the Rajya Sabha. To become a member of the Upper House in Parliament, he needed to be a resident of the state concerned. But the Trinamool Congress chief must have snubbed him after returning as the chief minister. So, in a sulk, he might have staged the drama of retiring from the consultancy business.”
Notably, after Banerjee retained power in the last assembly polls with a thumping majority, Kishor had announced that he was hanging his boots as a political strategist.
A few months later, he launched a campaign ‘Baat Bihar Ki’, which got shelved after he was dragged into an Intellectual Property Rights case.
He made a comeback in 2022, when he launched a 3,500-km-long padayatra, naming his campaign ‘Jan Suraaj’, which culminated in the formation of a party last year.
State BJP spokesperson Neeraj Kumar came out with a strongly worded statement, accusing Kishor of “no minor oversight, but a heinous crime” and suspected that the Jan Suraaj Party founder was involved “in a vile conspiracy with the ruling TMC in West Bengal to undermine Bihar elections”.
The BJP leader urged the Election Commission to launch an “immediate and rigorous investigation” against Kishor, whom he counted as among “political brokers and deal makers who trample upon democracy in their hunger for power”.
RJD spokesperson Mrityunjay Tiwari said, “The episode completely exposes the farce that the SIR has been in Bihar, and which is now being carried across the country. Several instances of names of leaders belonging to the ruling NDA, registered as voters at more than one place, have come to the fore.”
“Now, Prashant Kishor, whom we suspect of working clandestinely for the BJP-led coalition, has joined the list. Let him come forth with an explanation,” he added.
The EC has acknowledged that duplication of voter entries is a recurring issue and cited it as one reason for launching the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls throughout the country.
The SIR, which started in Bihar, was completed with the publication of updated rolls September 30, resulting in the removal of about 68.66 lakh entries, including roughly seven lakh cases of voters registered in multiple places.
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