Congress slams EC's response on duplicate voter IDs as 'duplicitous'

The Congress on Friday termed as "duplicitous" the Election Commission's explanation on duplicate voter ID numbers and asked the poll body to come clean on the issue.

Amid allegations of a cover-up over duplicate voter identity card numbers, the poll panel earlier in the day said it would address the "decades-long" matter in the next three months.

"The Congress party rejects this feeble and duplicitous explanation by the ECI and reiterates its demands to come clean on the sanctity of voter lists in India," the Congress' Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) said in a statement.

The group said the Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued a duplicitous response on the issue of the same voter IDs being allotted to multiple voters.

"The ECI, in its response, hides behind its processes to offer a feeble explanation. Shockingly but not surprisingly, the ECI has been forced to admit that its voter lists are flawed and not trustworthy," it said.

The EC, in a letter issued on September 18, 2008, told the Chief Electoral Officers of all states that "voter IDs are unique", according to the statement issued by EAGLE -- an eight-member committee set up the Congress last month to monitor the conduct of free and fair elections by the poll panel.

"However, the ECI today says the issue of duplicate voter IDs is a 'decades-long issue'. Which statement of the ECI should the citizens of India believe? Why should an average Indian voter today trust the Election Commission?" the group said.

Further, it said, how is it that 17 years later, the ECI speaks of constituting a body to clean up this process of multiple voter IDs?

"Was the ECI then all along misrepresenting to the voters of India that the voter IDs were unique? If yes, then what are the other processes which ECI has been misrepresenting to its citizens?" the group asked.

The initial response of the EC to these questions was to defend itself by stating that "this could happen only across states". But there are instances with clear evidence of many voters with the same voter ID number in the same assembly constituency in the same state, it said.

"Is the ECI then lying? As the issue of duplicate voter IDs clearly is not across different states, but rather in the same state and, in many cases, in the same constituencies," it said.

There was a categorical demand made by Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, along with other concerned political parties, for the EC to provide a copy of the Maharashtra voter rolls, the statement said.

"Why has there been a deafening silence on this? This only reaffirms what the Congress party has been asserting -- voter lists under the current ECI are dubious and flawed," it said.

Earlier in the day, the poll panel issued a statement in which it said India's electoral rolls are the biggest database of electors across the globe, with over 99 crore registered voters.

"As regards the issue of duplicate Electoral Photo Identity Card numbers, the Commission has already taken cognisance of the matter. Irrespective of an EPIC number, an elector who is linked to the electoral roll of a particular polling station can cast his vote at that polling station only and nowhere else," it asserted.