Persons holding multiple voter IDs due to migration, other issues: CEC Gyanesh Kumar
New Delhi, Aug 17 (PTI): Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday said instances of a person holding multiple voter identity cards arise due to migration or administrative lapses and the poll authority is working to rectify such mistakes.
Addressing a press conference here, Kumar also said the ‘House number zero’ issue flagged by political parties also arises as several voters do not have a home or their homes have not been given numbers by the panchayat or their respective municipality.
Kumar said the Commission had also addressed the issue of the same voter identity card number allotted to different persons in different states and corrected three lakh such instances.
“Even if a person has votes in two places, he goes to vote at only one place. Voting at two places is a crime and if any person makes a claim of double voting, then proof is required. Proof was asked but was not given," the CEC said.
Kumar said knowingly or unknowingly, some people have ended up having multiple voter identity cards due to migration and other issues, and exercises like the special intensive revision (SIR) would rectify such discrepancies.
On the issue of several voters listing their homes as ‘house number zero’, the CEC said: "Many people do not have a home, but their name is also in the voter list. The address that is given is the place where that person comes to sleep at night. Sometimes on the side of the road, sometimes under the bridge.”
“If such voters are called fake voters, it would be a big joke on the poor voters,” he said.
Kumar said crores of people have ‘zero number’ in their house addresses because the panchayat or the municipality has not given the number to the house.
“There are unauthorised colonies in the cities, where they do not have a number, so what address should they fill in their form? So the instructions of the Election Commission say that if there is any such voter in this country, the Election Commission stands with him and will give him a notional number,” he said.
“Just because when he fills it in the computer, he sees zero, it does not mean that he is not a voter. In the conditions of becoming a voter, your address is not as important as your citizenship and your completion of eighteen years of age and as long as you live in the vicinity of that booth," Kumar said.
On the issue of a person holding multiple identity cards, Kumar said this was because there was no website of the Election Commission before 200 that had all the data at one place.
“So, since technical facilities were not available before 2003, many such people who migrated to different places, their names were added to many places. Today there is a website, there is a computer, you can select and delete it,” Kumar said.
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Rickelton's ton in vain as SRH beat MI by 6 wickets
Mumbai (PTI): Ryan Rickelton's whirlwind unbeaten ton was overshadowed by Heinrich Klaasen's unbeaten 65 as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Mumbai Indians by six wickets in an IPL match here on Wednesday.
Chasing an imposing 244-run target, Travis Head (76 off 30) and Abhishek Sharma (45 off 24) shared 129 runs for the opening wicket to set the platform for SRH.
Klaasen (65 not out off 30 balls) then displayed his all-round hitting abilities to guide SRH home with the help of Nitish Kumar Reddy (21) and Salil Arora (30 not out off 10) in 18.4 overs.
Earlier, Rickelton's knock powered MI to 243 for five.
MI rode on a 93-run stand between Rickelton (123 not out off 55 balls) and Will Jacks (46 off 22) in 7.1 overs for the opening stand to power the side.
MI skipper Hardik Pandya scored a valuable 31 off 15 balls before being dismissed.
Praful Hinge (2/54), Eshan Malinga (1/29), Sakib Hasan (1/39) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (1/31) were the wicket-takers for SRH.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indian: 243 for 5 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 123 not out; Praful Hinge 2/54).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 249 for 4 in 18.4 overs (Travis Head 76, Heinrich Klaasen 65 not out; AM Ghazanfar 2/51).
