News agencies, Oppn turn pranks into headlines to smear Election Commission

Patna: After dogs, an inanimate vehicle and a foreign head of state, it is now the turn of a cat to apply for a certificate of residence in Bihar. This is what news agencies have stooped to report as news.

More than that, Opposition parties are asking questions of the Election Commission as if a mischievous application were the fault of the constitutional body.

After Dog Babu now Cat Kumar.
Hello ECI, can you fact check this? pic.twitter.com/MAWG8ntvpD

— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) August 11, 2025

A prankster in Rohtas district’s Nasriganj block applied for a residence certificate in the name of ‘Cat Kumar’.

The space for the photograph shows a hazel-eyed feline staring at the onlooker, and the parents of the applicant are cheekily named ‘Catty Boss’ and ‘Catiya Devi’.

“An FIR has been lodged at Nasriganj police station upon instructions from District Magistrate Udita Singh, who has taken a grim view of the application dated July 29,” an official said.

“The application was rejected as soon as it caught the eye of the officials concerned… The DM was of the view that such frivolity hampered work, gave the administration a bad name, and was tantamount to a misuse of information technology. The user is being traced with the help of the mobile number and email address quoted in the application. If these are found to be fake, cyber experts will track him down through the IP address,” he said.

This is the fifth such incident in the state, which witnessed a scramble for residence certificates after the special intensive revision of electoral rolls was announced.

Earlier, applications in the name of canines called ‘Dog Babu’ and ‘Dogesh Babu’ met with a similar administrative response in rural Patna and Nawada, respectively.

A similar case involved ‘Sonalika Tractor’, with an internet photograph of a Bhojpuri star, in East Champaran.

In Samastipur, a prankster chose no less a person than US President Donald Trump, complete with his photograph and the names of his parents, to cock a snook at the authorities.