TMC calls EC's clarification on duplicate voter IDs 'cover-up,' citing contradiction in its own rules

NEW DELHI: The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday dismissed the Election Commission's clarifications on duplicate voter ID numbers as a "cover-up" and cited the poll panel's own guidelines to assert that two cards cannot have identical numbers. While the EC said photo ID cards with the same numbers were issued to multiple voters due to certain states using the same "alphanumeric series", Gokhale shared excerpts from the handbook and said it was impossible to do so as the Functional Unique Serial Numbers are different for every Assembly constituency. Also, EPIC number links the details of voters with their photo and it is considered to be a "permanent unique ID", he said. "This clearly reeks of a conspiracy to conduct voter suppression in favour of the BJP, where voters in non-BJP areas are being targeted by issuing their EPIC numbers to people in other states," he said. The EC on Sunday said identical EPIC numbers or series were allotted to some electors from different states and Union territories due to a "decentralised and manual mechanism" being followed prior to shifting of the electoral roll database of all states to the ERONET platform.