Former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday said he is getting “a good reply” drafted for the Election Commission (ECI) over the notice he has been issued last week for having two EPIC numbers. He also pointed a finger at the Election Commission asking, “Whose lapse is it if two EPIC numbers have been issued in my name?”

“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,” Tejashwi told media in Patna on Wednesday.

Tejashwi Yadav vs ECI

Tejashwi Yadav held a press conference in Patna on Saturday to claim that his name was missing from Bihar’s draft electoral rolls and that his original EPIC number had been changed. He claimed his name was missing from the draft electoral rolls in Bihar, presenting an EPIC number, RAB2916120, during the press conference.

The Election Commission refuted this claim, stating Yadav’s name was indeed present in the draft rolls under the EPIC number RAB0456228, which he had also used in his 2020 election affidavit. Reacting to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader’s allegations, the ECI has also sent a notice to him saying that the voter ID which he showed in the press conference on Saturday, claiming that he was not included in the voter list, was “not officially issued”.

The ECI further stated that the EPIC number Tejashwi Yadav had presented (RAB2916120) was not officially issued and asked him to provide the original EPIC card for investigation. The commission has stated that Tejashwi Yadav was indeed listed at serial number 416 of polling station number 204 at Patna’s Bihar Animal Sciences University.

Tejashwi’s take on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar

Tejashwi, who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly has also alleged that many people, including senior bureaucrats, had their names struck off in the draft rolls published as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision ahead of the Bihar Assembly Elections 2025.

Tejashwi has raised questions on the effectiveness of the exercise which, in his words, was “an attempt to help the ruling BJP-led NDA in the upcoming assembly elections in the state”.

Contradicting Tejashwi’s allegation, the Patna District Administration has shared a screenshot of a portion of the draft electoral rolls in which names and photographs of the young politician, as also his father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, could be seen. 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”.

Following this, 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”.

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