Prashant Kishor listed as voter in both Bihar, Bengal

In an unusual twist ahead of the Bihar assembly elections, poll strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor has found himself at the centre of an electoral controversy — his name, officials say, figures on voter rolls in both Bihar and West Bengal.

According to Election Commission records, Kishor — whose newly launched Jan Suraaj Party is contesting the Bihar polls — is simultaneously registered as a voter in Kargahar assembly segment of Bihar’s Rohtas district and in Kolkata’s Bhabanipur constituency, the bastion of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

An election official confirmed that in Bengal, Kishor’s name appears under the address 121, Kalighat Road — notably, the headquarters of the Trinamool Congress (TMC). His polling station, the official added, is listed as St Helen School on B. Ranishankari Lane.

The revelation comes with a curious political backdrop: Kishor had been the chief architect of the TMC’s 2021 election campaign, widely credited with scripting Banerjee’s sweeping victory over the BJP.

Meanwhile, in Bihar, Kishor’s voter registration is tied to Madhya Vidyalaya, Konar, in the Kargahar assembly seat, under the Sasaram parliamentary constituency.

The double entry, however, runs afoul of election law. Citing the Representation of the People Act, 1950, an EC official pointed out that Section 17 expressly prohibits any individual from being registered as a voter in more than one constituency, while Section 18 bars multiple entries within the same area.

“Electors are required to file Form 8 to update their enrolment when they change residence,” the official explained, suggesting Kishor may not have formally transferred his voter registration from Bengal to Bihar.

The Election Commission has, in fact, long acknowledged that duplicate voter entries remain a recurring problem across states — a key reason it launched the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls earlier this year.

The SIR, which began in Bihar, led to the removal of nearly 68.66 lakh duplicate or invalid entries, including about seven lakh cases where voters were found to be registered in multiple places.

For now, the development adds an ironic twist for a man who has built his career on perfecting electoral arithmetic — only to find himself at odds with it.

With PTI inputs