Prashant Kishor, poll strategist turned politician whose Jan Suraaj Party is contesting the Bihar Assembly polls, has his name enrolled in the voter lists of two states – West Bengal and Bihar.
In Bengal, his address is listed as 121 Kalighat Road, which houses the Trinamool Congress office in Bhabanipur, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s assembly constituency. Kishor had worked with the TMC as a political consultant during the 2021 Assembly polls in the state. His polling station is listed as St Helen School on B Ranishankari Lane.
In Bihar, he is registered as a voter under the Sasaram parliamentary constituency in the Kargahar assembly constituency. His polling station is Madhya Vidyalay, Konar, under the Rohtas district. Konar is Kishor’s paternal village.
While Kishor did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment, a senior member of his team said he became a voter in Bihar after the Bengal polls. He said Kishor has applied to have his Bengal voter card cancelled, but did not elaborate on the status of the application. Bihar’s Chief Electoral Officer Vinod Singh Gunjiyal did not respond to queries seeking a comment.
As per Section 17 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, “no person shall be entitled to be registered in the electoral roll for more than one constituency”. And Section 18 adds that no person shall be registered more than once in the electoral roll of the same constituency. Once registered, the elector can shift their enrolment by filling Form 8, the EC’s form for shifting residence or correcting errors.
But electors being enrolled at multiple places is by no means rare. In fact, the EC cited it as one of the reasons for its decision to conduct the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in the country, starting with Bihar. “Some electors obtain registration in one place and then shift their residence and register themselves at another place without getting their names deleted from the electoral roll of the initial place of residence. This has led to an increased possibility of repeated entries in the electoral roll,” the EC had said in its June 24 order for the SIR.
The Bihar SIR exercise, which ended with the publication of the electoral roll on September 30, led to the removal of around 68.66 lakh electors in total, of which 7 lakh entries were of electors registered at more than one place. Officials admit that duplicates could still be on the rolls.
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Local TMC councillor of ward number 73 and CM Mamata Banerjee’s sister-in-law, Kajari Banerjee, said that 121, Kalighat Road, is the party office of All India Trinamool Congress. “He (Kishor) used to visit and stay in that building (during his work with the TMC). I am not sure whether he enrolled (as a voter) from here or not.”
Incidentally, during the Lok Sabha polls last year, the CPM had objected to Kishor being a voter there. “We had written to the Election Commission, stating that Kishor is not a resident here and his name should therefore be removed from the voter list,” said Biswajit Sarkar, secretary of the Bhabanipur-2 area committee.