Gyanesh Kumar’s defence on ‘0’ house numbers not convincing: report
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New Delhi: Defending the Election Commission of India (ECI), the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar addressed the concerns over lakhs of voters in Bihar, with house numbers marked ‘0’ during special intensive revision (SIR), saying that the said voters were not allotted house numbers by the local administration.
However, Newslaundry reported that at least 2.292 lak voters in the state had their house numbers recorded ‘0’, ‘00’ and ‘000’, which the RJD chief Tejashwi Yadav also pointed out in a press conference. However, what the Office of the Bihar Chief Electoral Officer told Newslawndry contradicts Gyanesh Kumar’s explanation.
“Do you know that in our country, crores of people have a zero number in front of their address? Why? Because the panchayat or municipality where they live has not assigned it a number. In cities, there are unauthorised colonies where there is no house number. So what are they supposed to fill in their forms?” The News Minute quoted Gyanesh Kumar.
He said that voters under such circumstances were assigned a notional number, because when entered into the computer, it accepts zero.
However, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Priyadarshi told Newslaundry that at times, when voters don’t fill in their house numbers, the ECI website still accepts such enrolment applications, and that’s why the default value for the house number is shown ‘0’. But, this would be changed after ground verification by the Booth Level Officers (BLOs), who later add proper addresses.
Also, Newslaundry learned that there are no proper guidelines for BLOs to assign notional house numbers.
Meanwhile, former chief election commissioner of India, SY Quraishi, said that it is true that there are no guidelines to BLOs to allot notional house numbers, that too as zero. He said that he never came across voters with house numbers zero, which shows that a mistake has slipped into the voter rolls. He said that there would be other mistakes as well, adding that even for a homeless voter, the address has to be specific, like if the voter sleeps outside a shop, his address is the shop’s.