A group of district Trinamul leaders in South Dinajpur led by Ashok Kumar Mitra, the chairman of Balurghat municipality, scrutinised the voter list in some locations of the town on Monday to find out whether any resident of another state has been included as a voter.

Mitra, who checked the details of voters in ward 5 of Balurghat town, from where he got elected, said he found the EPIC number of a voter in his ward was identical to that of a Gujarat voter.

“We have shared the details with our state leaders and will approach the administration. How can this happen?” said Mitra.

“We are conducting this scrutiny to find out voters from other states who do not stay here. Our party supremo Mamata Banerjee has instructed us to check the voter list and we are doing it,” he added.

Mamata, at a party meeting in Calcutta last month, had furnished documents to prove that the EPIC numbers of voters in some of Bengal districts like South Dinajpur and Murshidabad match those of voters based in states like Haryana and Gujarat.

The BJP is trying to include names of “outsiders” in the electoral roll of Bengal, keeping in mind the 2026 Assembly elections, she had alleged.

The Election Commission on Sunday clarified such duplication could happen for voters of different states but henceforth they would ensure a unique number is generated against each EPIC number. "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," it said.

The EPIC number of one Dalia Roy from Mitra's ward matched that of Bhaveshbhai Prajapati, a voter in Gandhinagar.

Bireswar Roy, Dalia’s father, said she is married and stays in Raiganj. “We are worried if my daughter can vote as there is another EPIC with the same serial number,” he said.

District BJP president Swarup Choudhury scoffed at the TMC. “Time and again, we have said that names of Bangladeshis and the Rohingya were included in the electoral roll but the TMC was silent then. But now, the TMC is simply doing politics as the EC has given a detailed clarification (on the EPIC issue)," he said.