Trinamool Congress accuses Election Commission of cover-up

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday stepped up the heat on the Election Commission of India (ECI), calling ECI's clarifications on duplicate voter ID numbers (on Sunday) as a "cover-up" and cited the poll panel's own guidelines to assert that two cards cannot have identical numbers, contradicting the ECI's own rules and guidelines. Trinamool went all out on a social media campaign on the issue after the Trinamool supremo demanded a "clean up" in voter rolls and alleged manipulations.

Trinamool party's Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale said on Tuesday, "Yesterday, Trinamool had given the Election Commission of India 24 hours to admit and accept their blunder on the duplicate voter ID fraud issue. Clearly, the ECI, which has been exposed, wants to brazen it out. The 'clarification' given by the ECI (on Sunday) in response to CM Mamata Banerjee is actually a "cover up". They have admitted that there is something wrong but are refusing to accept it."

Gokhale shared on X, the excerpts from the 'Handbook For Electoral Registration Officers' to counter the poll panel's clarifications on the issue, which was first raised by Mamata Banerjee.


Countering the EC's clarification that even with two people having the same EPIC number, they can only vote in their respective constituency where they are enrolled, Gokhale said, "In photo electoral rolls, the elector is linked to his photo by the EPIC number. Therefore, 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."

"This will lead to the refusal of voting due to a photo mismatch. By allotting the same EPIC numbers in different states, voting can be denied to those who are likely to vote for non-BJP parties due to photo mismatch," Gokhale pointed out.