The Election Commission has admitted the truth of Mamata Banerjee’s allegation about multiple voters in different parts of India having photo I-cards with the same number, four days after she “exposed” the anomaly.

However, the poll panel has clarified that this does not create the possibility of bogus voting.

“…While EPIC (elector photo identity card) 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,” the commission said in a statement on Sunday.

“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.”

Several parties have made similar allegations since the Maharashtra Assembly polls last year.

At a news conference held by the Maharashtra Opposition alliance last month, MP Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray faction cited a spike in the number of voters between the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls last year, held barely seven months apart.

Raut suggested there was an organised group of floating voters who tilt the outcomes in places they move to.

The poll panel has repeatedly denied this and said that all additions or deletions from the voter lists were done with the knowledge of the political parties.

Electoral registration data shows that such spikes are common when parliamentary and Assembly polls are held a few months apart.

On Wednesday, Mamata read out the names of voters from Bengal and other states who she said had the same voter I-card numbers and alleged that they would vote in all the phases fraudulently. She blamed the BJP.

On Sunday, the commission explained: “The allotment of identical EPIC number/ series to some electors from different States/ UTs was due to a decentralised 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 (chief electoral officer) 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, to allay any apprehensions, the Commission 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 poll panel is yet to respond to this newspaper’s queries on how exactly different states ended up issuing the same numbers, when this discrepancy was detected, and what its magnitude is.

The Eronet is an all-India centralised online database management system that was launched in 2017. Before this, Electoral Roll Management System software was used — initially by individual districts, and later in a centralised manner at the state or Union Territory level.

A trade union leader from Birbhum was perhaps the first to flag the anomaly to the poll panel in December last year.

Mahammad Ripon Sekh, the 26-year-old president of the Parijayee Shramik Aikya Mancha, said: “One of our members from Murshidabad brought this to our notice.”

He added: “We have 2,500 graduate volunteers in 14 districts, and hold data of 7.93 lakh people, mainly migrant labourers who go to work outside the state. Wherever Bengalis go to work, we are called Bangladeshis or terrorists, so we advise all workers to keep all their documents up to date. So we asked all our volunteers to check.”

The voter I-card numbers were simply searched on the voter lists of every state on the Voters’ Service Portal.

“So far, we have found more than 400 such duplicate voter number cases. We found that the series LPZ is used in Gujarat, XYZ in Haryana, and GTM in Uttar Pradesh,” Sekh said.

“EPIC numbers of all these series have been issued in Bengal as well. Workers who go outside Bengal may face police harassment as the police believe that voter cards are unique.”

Sekh wrote to Bengal’s CEO, chief minister and Trinamool’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in late December. He is yet to receive a response from the CEO. However, Trinamool MP Samirul Islam spoke to the media about the matter
in January.

Sekh said he was happy that Mamata had publicised the union’s findings.

“My father was a labourer in Pakur, Jharkhand. I started this union when I was in Class XII as I felt it was my duty to put to use the education I got because of his labour,” he said.

“We helped rescue stranded workers during the pandemic. If all your identity cards are not perfect, anyone can exploit you.”

The voter photo I-cards were introduced in 1993. The current edition of the poll panel’s Manual on Electoral Rolls says: "Every EPIC is issued under a unique EPIC Number. EPIC Number is an alphanumeric string with 3 alphabetical codes followed by a seven-digit number.

"While the first 3 alphabetical Codes, called the Functional Unique Serial Number (FUSN) code is unique for every Assembly Constituency and is provided by the Election Commission, the numeric code that follows the FUSN code is a six-digit running serial number followed by one digit checksum making a total of seven digits.

"New FUSN codes have been allotted to all newly delimited Constituencies in the country. However, the ECI has reiterated that the same EPIC number shall be given to Duplicate EPICs to be issued to the electors to whom EPICs have been issued under old EPICs series before delimitation. An EPIC once issued to an elector shall remain valid during the lifetime of the elector even if he/ she shifts his/her residence."