Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], March 6 (ANI): A delegation of the Trinamool Congress met Election Commission officials in Kolkata on Thursday regarding their complaints about the same Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number.
After the meeting, West Bengal Minister, and Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim told the reporters that every voter should have a unique ID number and demanded a physical verification to ensure this.
“Every voter should have a unique ID number; there should be physical verification, and people from outside should not have a voting right here,” Hakim told ANI.
Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee formed a committee to check the alleged irregularities in the voters’ list in every district of West Bengal. She alleged that the BJP had added fake voters to the voters’ list to manipulate elections in Maharashtra and Delhi, and they were trying the same trick in West Bengal.
“Sitting in the Election Commissioner’s office, they have created a fake voter’s list online, and in every district of West Bengal, fake voters have been added. Using this trick, they have won elections in Delhi and Maharashtra. The opposition in Maharashtra could not find out these facts. Most of the fake voters are from Haryana and Gujarat. BJP is manipulating voters list with the blessing of EC, Bengal’s culture gave rise to independence,” Banerjee said earlier this week.
However, ECI on Sunday clarified that having the same Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) number doesn’t mean there are duplicate or fake voters.
The ECI’s clarification comes after concerns were raised on social media and in media reports about electors in different states having identical EPIC numbers.
“Irrespective of the EPIC number, any elector can cast a vote only at their designated polling station in their respective Constituency in their State/UT where they are enrolled in the electoral roll and nowhere else.” ECI clarified in an official statement.
This issue arose because different states and union territories used the same alphanumeric series for EPIC numbers before switching to the ERONET platform.
“The allotment of identical EPIC number/series to some electors from different States/UTs was due to a decentralized and manual mechanism being followed prior to shifting of the electoral roll database of all States/UTs to the ERONET platform. This resulted in certain State/UT CEO offices 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,” the statement read. (ANI)
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