Duplication of card numbers doesn’t mean fake voters: EC

Amid reports of identical Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number being issued to electors in two different states, the Election Commission on Sunday said it does not imply fake voters.

The poll panel 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,” it said.

Such duplication was merely caused by the use of “decentralised and manual mechanism” with “identical alphanumeric series” by two different states and Union Territories (UTs) prior to shifting of the electoral roll database of all states to the ERONET platform, it said in an official release.

“This resulted in certain State/UT Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office 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/UTs,” it said.

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

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

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

The statement came days after the Trinamool Congress alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party was manipulating voters’ lists in the poll-bound West Bengal with the EC’s “blessing”.

The Mamata Banerjee-led party on Sunday said that the EC’s statement backed its claims about the inclusion of non-resident voters in the state’s electoral list to help a particular party.

TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said that the EC’s statement “confirms our claims that there are names in the electoral list which had been included after conclusion of previous polls. This is aimed at helping BJP get more votes”.

“These names don’t tally with the list of permanent residents of a constituency and are aimed at helping the ruling party at the Centre. Our supremo Mamata Banerjee had pointed out this anomaly days back,” he added.

BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the TMC is “scared of losing power in the next assembly polls as it won’t be able to manipulate the public mandate through terror, intimidation, and false voting.”

(With agency inputs)