Patna, Aug 2 (PTI) RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday claimed that his name was missing in the draft electoral rolls published in Bihar and, when met with a rebuttal, insisted that there was a “change” in EPIC number allotted to him.
The leader of the opposition in the state Assembly demonstrated at a press conference that an online search, with the help of his EPIC number on Election Commission’s website, was yielding the result “no records found”.
The former deputy chief minister said, “The booth level officer (BLO) who visited my place did not give me any receipt of the enumeration form that I had filled up. But I had got myself photographed while handing over my enumeration forms to her”.
The young leader exclaimed, “Now look! I am not registered as a voter myself. This disqualifies me from contesting elections. Perhaps, I cease to be treated as a citizen and stand deprived of the right to live in this house.” When some of the journalists suggested that he check a printout of the draft electoral rolls provided to all political parties by the EC, Yadav shot back, “The online method is what more people have access to”.
“Would you expect someone residing outside Bihar to come down to look up his name in the electoral rolls? My point is to emphasise that when people like us are at the receiving end, what to speak of the common people. I have heard that even an IAS officer couple has found their names missing”, he said.
The young leader, who is the INDIA bloc’s de facto chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Assembly polls, remarked, “I would like to see if any BJP leader also has his name missing in the draft rolls.” Shortly afterwards, senior BJP leader and Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary and the Patna district administration came out with screenshots of the draft electoral rolls in which Yadav’s details, along with a photograph, could be seen.
Choudhary came out with a post on his X handle, saying “You (Yadav) lack the qualifications to do a proper search and find your name, which is very much there, alongside that of your father, respected Lalu Prasad (RJD supremo). You would do better to shut your shop dealing in fraudulent and false claims”.
The district administration also came out with a tweet, debunking “news reports suggesting that the name of the honourable leader of the opposition, Tejashwi Yadav, was not in draft rolls prepared as part of special intensive revision in Bihar”.
The administration also said, “Upon investigation”, it was found that Yadav’s name was very much there and his booth was still at the library of the veterinary college, as before, but with changes in his own serial number as well as that of the polling station.
The administration, too, shared a screenshot of the relevant part of the draft electoral rolls.
However, later, when journalists approached Yadav with queries, he stuck to his guns.
“The special intensive revision (SIR), of which the draft electoral rolls are a part, is indeed a fraud. I would like to know how the administration managed to change my EPIC number in the draft electoral rolls”, the RJD leader, who had recently caused a flutter by threatening to “boycott” the Assembly elections, said.
When Patna DM Shirshat Kapil Ashok was asked about Yadav’s charge, he said, “The EPIC number in the draft rolls is the same as the one submitted by the honourable leader of the opposition in the 2020 Assembly polls. If he is in possession of more than one EPIC, then it is a matter of investigation”.
State minister and BJP leader Nitin Nabin chuckled at Yadav, demanding his “apology for committing a fraud by having made more than one voter ID card”.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Yadav alleged that the EC was “going back on its promise of providing political parties with full details of the persons whose names have not been included in draft electoral rolls. They are disclosing only the names, without specifying which person has been identified as deceased and who have been said to have migrated elsewhere”.
“With 15,000-20,000 deletions in almost every Assembly segment, the EC has saddled parties with the Herculean task of independently verifying wrongful deletions before the claims and objections period ends on September 1”, alleged Yadav.
In a related development, CPI(ML) Liberation state secretary Kunal informed the media about a letter sent to the chief electoral officer of Bihar, claiming that the party had identified at least 12 living people in the reserved Bhore Assembly constituency of Gopalganj district whose names were wrongly dropped from the draft electoral rolls and listed among 78 “deceased” people shared with political parties. PTI NAC MNB
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.