Are unique electoral ID numbers being duplicated? | Explained

The story so far: On February 27, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that the ruling BJP was “with the blessings of Election Commission of India ” including voters from other States in the West Bengal voters’ list. The Commission said that the allotment of identical EPIC numbers to some voters from different States or UTs was due to the decentralised and manual mechanism being followed prior to shifting 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”. However, it clarified that while EPIC numbers of some of the electors may be identical, the other details including demographic details, constituency and polling booth are different for voters with the same EPIC number. So, when a voter in Bengal goes to cast his vote, his photo on the electoral roll will be different if the same EPIC number has been allotted to a person in another State.