'Poll authorities faulting me for their mistake by issuing me notice for 2 EPIC numbers': Tejashwi Yadav

Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Wednesday charged election authorities in Patna with "faulting him for their own mistake" by sending him a notice on having two EPIC numbers.

The former Bihar deputy chief minister also claimed that "a good reply" was being drafted for the notice, sent last week, which would "leave them with nothing to say".

"I have received a notice not from the Election Commission but from the Patna district administration. A good reply is being drafted and upon receipt, they would be left with nothing to say. They are trying to fault me for their own mistake. Whose lapse is it if two EPIC numbers have been issued in my name? After all, I have been casting my vote from only one place," said Yadav, who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly.

Notably, he had last week conducted an online search of his EPIC number in the draft electoral rolls which yielded the result "no records found".

Claiming that many other well-heeled persons, including senior bureaucrats, had their names struck off in the draft rolls published as part of the special intensive revision, Yadav had cast serious doubts on the efficacy of the mammoth exercise which, he has been alleging, was "an attempt to help the ruling BJP-led NDA in the upcoming assembly elections in the state".

The district administration in Patna had come out with a rebuttal of Yadav's allegation, sharing a screenshot of a portion of the draft electoral rolls in which names and photographs of the young leader, as also his father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, could be seen.

However, Yadav stuck to his guns, charging the election authorities with "changing my EPIC number", even as the NDA demanded that the RJD leader face trial for having two voter ID cards.

The Patna district magistrate clarified that the EPIC number it had in its record was "the same as the one stated by the leader of the opposition in his own affidavit in the 2020 elections".

Subsequently, the sub-divisional magistrate of Patna (Sadar), who is also the Electoral Registration Officer for Digha assembly constituency where Yadav and his family members are registered as voters, issued a letter asking the RJD leader to "hand over for thorough investigation" the voter ID card which was "not issued officially".

The RJD leader spoke to journalists at the airport here, before leaving for Delhi to attend a meeting of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc at the residence of Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Regarding the meeting, he said, "We have many issues to discuss. The country is facing so many crises. The Donald Trump administration has unleashed a tariff offensive against the country, and the Narendra Modi government is maintaining a deafening silence." Yadav, who is the I.N.D.I.A. bloc's de facto chief ministerial candidate for the Bihar assembly polls, rubbished the suggestion that the NDA had stolen a march by holding its parliamentary party meeting a couple of days ago, which was addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Seat-sharing is not something that is finalised inside the Parliament House," the RJD leader said.

The second-term Raghopur MLA also made light of controversial former legislator Anant Singh's claim that he would make Yadav "use his deposit" if the JD(U), headed by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, fielded him against the RJD leader.

Yadav replied sarcastically, "Our party spokesperson Bantu Singh is the right man to answer such a boast." Bantu Singh was once a close aide of Anant Singh, a gangster-turned-politician who has represented Mokama several times, on tickets of JD(U) as well as RJD, and also as an Independent.

In 2020, he won the seat on a ticket of the RJD, which fielded his wife Neelam Devi when a conviction in a case led to his disqualification.

However, Neelam Devi defected to NDA last year when Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the RJD and returned to the BJP-led coalition.

Anant Singh, who has been acquitted by the Patna High Court, has declared his intentions to contest the upcoming assembly polls, preferably on a JD(U) ticket, though the party has, so far, been non-committal on the issue.