NEW DELHI, March 3: The Election Commission (EC) on Sunday responded to recent media reports and social media posts highlighting cases where multiple electors appeared to share the same voter ID number, clarifying that such duplication does not indicate the presence of fake voters. The EC explained that the issue arose due to different states using the same alphanumeric series for the Electors Photo Identification Cards (EPIC).

The clarification came after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of adding fake voters to the electoral rolls ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections with the alleged collusion of the Election Commission. This claim was accompanied by lists circulating on social media, showing identical EPIC numbers for electors in Bengal and other states.

In its statement, the Election Commission acknowledged the issue, stating, “While some electors may share identical EPIC numbers, other details such as demographic information, Assembly Constituency, and polling booth are different for these electors.” The EC emphasized that despite the duplication of EPIC numbers, each elector can only vote at their designated polling station in their respective constituency where they are enrolled.

The Commission further explained that the duplication of EPIC numbers resulted from a decentralized and manual system used before the electoral roll database was shifted to the ERONET platform. This led to some state and union territory (UT) offices using the same alphanumeric series, which allowed for the possibility of duplicate EPIC numbers being assigned to electors in different constituencies.

To address the issue, the Election Commission assured the public that it would work to allocate unique EPIC numbers to all registered electors. Any cases of duplicate EPIC numbers will be corrected, and the ERONET 2.0 platform will be updated to prevent such occurrences in the future.