Mumbai, March 4

Sunil Karmakar, a resident of West Bengal, was issued a voter ID card flashing the photo of a dog instead of his picture. Disgruntled Karmakar has decided to file a defamation case against the Election Commission of India (ECI). Karmakar received the voter ID card on Tuesday ahead of the assembly election the state in 2021 , as per media reports.

According to 64-year-old Karmakar, he had applied for correction in his previous voter ID card. However, when he received the corrected ID card, he noticed that his photo had been replaced by that of a dog. He has decided to file a defamation case as Karmakar alleged that the public mocked him for having a dog photo in his card.

Karmakar, who is a voter of Bewa II’s Ramnagar village in Bengal’s Murshidabad, mentioned that the mistakes that he had spotted earlier remained to be there in the corrected voter ID.

According to media reports, the mistakes may have occurred due to widespread panic over citizenship screening after the amended law of citizenship. As many as 0.24 million new voters applied for an ID card from 22 Assembly segments in Murshidabad district. While existing voters rushed to rectify errors in their ID card that included Karmakar, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, the district administration had cancelled leave for all government employees to ensure an error-free voters’ list.

Rajarshi Chakraborty, the block development officer of Farakka, said that the administration would investigate Karmakar’s charge that the error was intentional.

Chakraborty added that Karmakar would be given a new voter ID card next month, the Hindustan Times report added.

Published on March 5, 2020