Resolve issues at all-party meets: Election commissioner to officials
Kumar added that officials should ensure that the citizens of India who are above 18 years of age are registered as electors as per Article 325 and Article 326 of the Constitution.
Chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Tuesday asked state chief electoral officers (CEOs) to hold all-party meetings and resolve issues within the statutory framework, emphasising no electoral staff or officer should be intimidated using false claims.
“...fulfill all statutory obligations diligently and as per the existing legal framework...,” he said, referring to Representation of the People Act, Registration of Elector Rules, Conduct of Election Rules 1961, and Election Commission of India (ECI)’s instructions. He called for issuing action-taken reports by March 31.
Kumar was speaking on the first day of a conference of the CEOs, district election officers, and electoral roll officers, days after West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) accused the ECI of “planting fake voters” for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Kumar added that officials should ensure that the citizens of India who are above 18 years of age are registered as electors as per Article 325 and Article 326 of the Constitution.
“Officials were directed to make efforts to have between 800-1200 electors in each polling booth and ensure that it is within 2kms distance from the residence of each elector. Polling booths with proper assured minimum facilities should be established for the ease of voting in rural areas. Polling booths should also be established in high-rise buildings as well as slum clusters to increase voting in urban areas,” the ECI said in a statement.
In a post on X, TMC said it gave ECI 24 hours to come clean about the fake voters but it stayed silent. TMC said it was exposing ECI using the rulebook. TMC referred to allegedly duplicated electors’ photo identification card (EPIC) numbers and said they have to be unique while vowing to fight electoral malpractices tooth and nail.
“We gave @ECISVEEP 24 hours to come clean about planting fake voters for @BJP4India in Bengal. They stayed silent. So we exposed them using their own rulebook. EPIC numbers are UNIQUE and CANNOT be duplicated. Let this be clear: This is NOT Maharashtra. This is NOT Delhi. This is Bengal. Here, your ELECTORAL MALPRACTICES will be fought tooth and nail,” TMC wrote.
The ECI on Sunday said even though there are identical Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers, the addresses and the assembly constituencies for polling remain different. It added the duplication in EPIC numbers does not “imply duplicate/fake voters” as it was merely caused by the use of “decentralised and manual mechanism” with “identical alphanumeric series” by two different states and Union territories.
CEC asks to set a transparent narrative
CEC Gyanesh Kumar told the gathering “to set a narrative with transparency” rather than becoming a part of the narrative.
A person familiar with the developments said: “The officials were divided into multiple teams to deliberate on the multiple stakeholders involved in the election process. The Bengal EPIC duplication issue was discussed among one of the teams, and it came to fore that someone from inside the West Bengal CEO office had disseminated the data to the TMC, as the election management system software itself had flagged it.”
“It means that the repeat EPIC numbers were not the findings of the political party, rather the election management software itself. As ECI had earlier explained this too shall be rectified. On Wednesday, the EPIC duplication issue will be discussed on a larger scale,” they added.