Image used for representational purpose.
| Photo Credit: V. Raju
Taking cognizance of certain reports that electors in two different States were getting the same Voter ID numbers, the Election Commission of India on Sunday (March 2, 2025) said irrespective of the EPIC number, a person can cast a vote only at their designated polling stations in their respective constituencies in their States or Union Territories.
The Commission said that it would remove these duplications and ensure that each voter gets a unique EPIC number.
Electors Photo Identification Card or the EPIC number is the 10-digit voter ID card number issued by the Election Commission of India to each elector.
Certain social media posts had flagged the issue of electors of two different States having identical EPIC numbers. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had also made similar charges earlier this week.
In an official statement on Sunday, the ECI said: “it is clarified that while EPIC numbers of some of the electors may be identical, the other details including demographic details, Assembly Constituency and polling booth are different for the electors with the same EPIC number.”
“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,” it said.
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The poll body further said that 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 ERONET is a web-based platform which was developed for election officials, in multiple languages and scripts, to handle all processes pertaining to registration, migration, and deletion of names from the electoral roll.
The Commission, however, said that in order to allay any apprehensions, it 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 ERONET 2.0 platform will be updated to aid and assist in this process”.
The reports on duplicate voter ID number assumes significance as according to claims by certain social media posts, some of them were of migrant workers from Bengal whose numbers had also been allotted to voters in Gujarat and Haryana.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Bannerjee has also mounted an attack on the ECI over alleged anomalies in the Electoral Rolls of the State which is headed for Assembly polls next year.
Earlier this week, she accused the BJP of appointing several agencies for manipulating the electoral rolls in West Bengal with the blessing of the ECI and cited a few examples of EPIC numbers of people of the State being linked to other people living in Haryana, Gujarat and Punjab. She alleged that the electoral rolls of West Bengal were being manipulated so that the BJP could bring in people from other Atates to cast votes in the Assembly polls.
Published – March 02, 2025 03:30 pm IST