Bengal’s ruling party on Monday repeated its accusations against the Election Commission of India and set a deadline of 24 hours for the poll panel to accept its error on duplication of voter-card numbers.
“Dear @ECISVEEP come clean on EPIC card duplication SCAM in the next 24 hours. What has happened is CRIMINAL. If you don’t we will release another expose tomorrow,” journalist-turned-Trinamul Rajya Sabha member Sagarika Ghose posted on X.
Earlier, Trinamul’s Rajya Sabha Parliamentary Party Leader Derek O'Brien also said that if the Election Commission (EC) fails to admit its error the party would come out with more documents on Tuesday morning.
O'Brien, along with Ghose and Lok Sabha MP Kirti Azad, displayed lists with details of voter id cards with the same EPIC number, and said most of them were from states ruled by the BJP.
"We want only residents of a state to vote in that state. Only voters of Bengal to vote in Bengal... Voters will not be allowed to vote as their votes will be cast by people with identical EPIC numbers," O'Brien said.
"These people will be sneaked in from other states to vote. This is unacceptable," he added.
After the Trinamul flagged identical voter card numbers to electors in two different states, the EC on Sunday said it will rectify the issue and also update its technology-driven platform.
The poll authority asserted that while the elector photo identity card (EPIC) numbers of some of the voters "may be identical", the other details, including demographic details, assembly constituency and polling booth, are different.
Terming it an "Epic Scam", O'Brien alleged that the poll panel issued the statement after the TMC announced that it was going to hold a press conference on the issue.
"Limited appreciation to the EC. I say limited because EC is admitting the error but not accepting the error," he said.
"In the next 24 hours, we humbly ask the EC to also accept the error. If not, we will share a document at 9 am on Tuesday morning," he said.
The TMC leaders also demanded an in-depth probe into this.
The EC on Sunday admitted that identical EPIC numbers or series were allotted to some electors from different states and Union territories. This, the poll panel said, happened due to a "decentralised and manual mechanism" being followed prior to shifting of the electoral roll database of all states to the ERONET (Electoral Roll Management) platform.
(With inputs from PTI)
