Duplication of voter card numbers does not indicate fake voters: EC

NEW DELHI: Facing criticism from political parties over alleged irregularities and instances of addition and deletions of voters in electoral rolls in states that recently went to polls, the Election Commission of India on Sunday came forward with its decision to allot unique Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number to registered electors.

“To allay any apprehensions, the commission has decided to ensure allotment of a unique EPIC number to registered electors. Any case of duplicate EPIC number will be rectified by allotting a unique EPIC number,” the ECI statement said.

Amid reports citing issuance of identical voter card numbers to electors in two different states, the Commission said duplicate numbers do not necessarily imply fake voters.

It also said that while EPIC numbers of some of the voters “may be identical”, the other details including demographic details, Assembly constituency and polling booth are different.

“Irrespective of the EPIC number, any elector can cast a vote only at their designated polling station in their respective constituency in their state or union territory where they are enrolled in the electoral roll and nowhere else,” the poll panel clarified.

It explained that identical EPIC numbers or series were allotted to some electors from different states and union territories due to a “decentralised and manual mechanism” being followed prior to shifting of the electoral roll database of all states to the ERONET platform.

This resulted in certain state chief electoral officers using the same EPIC alphanumeric series and leaving a scope for the possibility of duplicate EPIC numbers being allotted to electors in different Assembly constituencies in different states, the poll body admitted.

According to the EC website, ERONET helps election officials maintain the electoral system “by removing duplicate entries and inclusion of migrated electors”.

The ERONET 2.0 platform will be updated to aid and assist in this process, it said.

Meanwhile, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said that the Commission’s stance proved the claims made by party chairperson and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to be true. “The conspiracy has been unearthed and now the Election Commission has resorted to damage control. The Commission has not clarified how such things happened and now has claimed they are taking measures,” Ghosh said.

Banerjee, while addressing her party’s elected representatives, leaders and functionaries on Thursday, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of manipulating the voter list by enrolling “fake voters” from other states in the electoral rolls with the “blessings” of the Election Commission ahead of the Assembly elections early next year. She warned of staging a sit-in demonstration before the office of the poll panel if corrective action is not taken to ensure transparency in electoral rolls by weeding out fake voters.

Ghosh claimed TMC doesn’t believe in the statement of the poll panel and will continue with its door-to-door and booth-wise scrutiny of the voter list as per Banerjee’s directions. “This is Bengal and the conspiracy hatched in Maharashtra and Delhi will not work. Their conspiracy to enlist outsiders in Bengal’s voter list will be foiled. Our thrust will be going door-to-door and every single booth and weed out any bogus voters and prepare the voter list with full transparency,” he added.