PATNA, Aug. 11 -- The Election Commission (EC) on Sunday issued a notice to Bihar's deputy chief minister Vijay Kumar Sinha, asking him to explain his enrolment as a voter in two assembly constituencies of the poll-bound state, days after the poll body issued a notice to RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav for possessing two Election Photo Identity Cards (EPICs). Sinha has been asked to respond to the notice by 5pm on August 14, the letter, which HT has seen, said. "As per the draft electoral roll published in course of the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise of the voter list in Bihar, it has been found that your name exists in the voter list of 182-Bankipur assembly constituency...as well as in 168-Lakhisarai assembly constituency... Your name existed at both the places even prior to the SIR exercise," the notice said, asking Sinha to respond by August 14 so that further action can be taken. Earlier in the day, Sinha claimed that he had applied for deletion of name from the voter list of Patna's Bankipur assembly constituency on August 5, and also showed media its acknowledgement slip, signed by his booth level officer (BLO) Anupam Kumari, after his earlier application for deletion, submitted on April 30, 2024, was rejected by the ECI for reasons he said he wasn't aware of. The controversy erupted early on Sunday after Tejashwi Yadav made a scathing attack against Sinha by divulging before the media that the deputy CM had two EPICs. Yadav, who earlier this month got a notice from the EC for possessing two EPICs, said that he had responded to the notice issued through the Patna district administration, but stopped short of divulging the contents of his reply. "I replied to the notice in the evening on August 8, the same day and in the same manner I received it through Speed Post. In my case, one EPIC had already been cancelled, whereas in the case of Sinha, the two EPICs are active and show online on the EC portal in different constituencies." As per rules, an Indian citizen above 18 years of age can be a voter at only one place. Meanwhile, Opposition parties in Bihar slammed ECI over its stance in the Supreme Court of not publishing a separate list of 6.5 million deleted Bihar voters separately from the published draft rolls. Leader of opposition in the assembly Tejashwi Yadav said he has been asking for the list of 6.5 million deleted names from the draft rolls published after the first phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). He said the ECI should release the list of names deleted on specific grounds for "public scrutiny" and also wondered whether the deletions on account of death were supported by any documentary evidence. CPI-ML (liberation) said that the deleted electors should be specified in the form of a consolidated list. "Our primary concern is that the ECI has a responsibility towards the elector and every elector deleted from the rolls has a right to know why his /her name was omitted. We feel the ECI is abdicating its responsibility. Moreover, our party has filed complaints and action too has been taken in some cases. But the ECI is claiming no objections have been filed by political parties just to show that the SIR is blemishless," said general secretary Dipankar Bhattarcharya. Reacting on the issue, BJP state spokesperson Prem Ranjan Patel said, "ECI has shared the names of those deleted from the draft rolls with the BLAs...Now, if BLAs find any person wrongly omitted, there is always a scope for addition by redressal mechanism opened by ECI. ECI is working in a transparent manner."...