After anomalies in the voter lists of the Pilibhit Sadar and Azamgarh assembly constituencies, an issue involving 163 duplicate entries in the electoral rolls has surfaced in Basti district’s five assembly constituencies— 26 in Harraiya, 52 in Kaptanganj, 20 in Rudhauli, 18 in Basti Sadar and 47 in Mahadewa.
Additional district magistrate (Basti) Gyan Chandra Gupta, who also serves as the deputy district election officer, said that following instructions from the Election Commission of India (ECI), a drive was launched on October 22 to identify duplicate entries across the district’s five assembly constituencies. In July, duplicate entries of 5,411 voters were detected, Gupta said, adding that the electoral registration officer (ERO) corrected duplicate entries by generating Form 7 for 2,705 voters.
“During the drive, 163 demographic similar entries were detected in the electoral rolls across the district’s five constituencies: 26 in Harraiya assembly constituency, 52 in Kaptanganj, 20 in Rudhauli, 18 in Basti Sadar and 47 in Mahadewa assembly constituency,” he said.
On the Election Commission’s instructions, the DSE and PSE processes to identify duplicate entries are continuing. Similarly, there were duplicate entries of another woman, Gudiya, but her photo and EPIC number were different. The name of her husband was the same in both the entries.
An SP delegation, led by state unit president Shyam Lal Pal, submitted a memorandum to Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa on October 19, alleging hundreds of duplicate entries across the district’s five assembly constituencies.
After verification, the EROs concerned remove duplicate entries according to the ECI rules, he said. A similar case was found for three other voters – Kusum Devi, Adiba Waheed, and Abdul Hameed—where the EPIC numbers were different but the name and photo were similar, according to the SP delegation’s memorandum.
Previously, the Samajwadi Party (SP) had raised concerns regarding duplicate voters in Basti district.
