Trinamool Congress defends claim that Election Commission facilitated voter fraud in West Bengal

The Trinamool Congress on Monday reiterated its claim that the Election Commission facilitated voter fraud in West Bengal, reported The Telegraph.

At a press conference in Delhi, party MPs Derek O’Brien, Sagarika Ghose and Kirti Azad brandished lists purportedly containing the details of alleged fake voters in West Bengal possessing the same Electors Photo Identification Card, or EPIC, numbers as voters in Bharatiya Janata Party ruled states.

O’Brien gave the poll panel 24 hours to acknowledge its “EPIC scam”, warning that if it failed to do so, that more details about the alleged voter fraud would be shared with the public at 9 am on Tuesday.

EPIC, or the Electors Photo Identification Card, is issued by the Election Commission and serves as identification proof for Indian citizens over the age of 18 to cast their vote in elections. The EPIC number is the voter ID card number

The Election Commission on Sunday stated that the duplication of voter ID numbers issued in different states did not imply that fake voters had been added to electoral rolls. The allotment of the same number to more than one voter was a result of states using the same alphanumeric series, it added.

It said: “It is clarified that while EPIC numbers of some of the electors may be identical, the other details including demographic...

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