EPIC concerns: TMC urges election body to suspend voter ID-Aadhaar linking process

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress on Friday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to suspend its recently proposed process of linking Voter ID cards (EPICs) with Aadhaar numbers until the concerns surrounding it are addressed.

A memorandum signed by Derek O’Brien, Trinamool Congress’ Parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha and other prominent MPs including Kalyan Banerjee, Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Sagarika Ghose – was submitted to the ECI on Friday morning.

“We also urge the ECI to suspend the process of linking EPICs with Aadhaar until the concerns raised by AITC in this memorandum are addressed comprehensively,” reads the memorandum submitted to ECI by a four-member delegation.

Trinamool Congress chairperson and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on February 27 had raised alarm over large-scale voter ID card duplication, calling it a serious threat to electoral integrity.

She had demanded urgent intervention from the Election Commission, warning that such discrepancies could compromise free and fair elections.

A delegation of our MPs met the ECI demanding answers on why they are pushing for Aadhaar-EPIC linkage without first addressing the glaring fraud in voter identities. Trinamool Congress said that their key questions that remained unanswered were as to how many voter identities have actually been verified, why hasn’t ECI explicitly stated that Aadhaar seeding is voluntary, why did ECI fail to amend Form 6B despite its Supreme Court undertaking, why did ECI seek Union Govt.’s approval to make Aadhaar-voter ID linking voluntary and why hasn’t ECI challenged Union Govt.’s non-compliance in court.

Trinamool Congress MP Ritabrata Banerjee criticised the ruling BJP for systematically preventing parliamentary discussion on the critical issue of fake voter IDs and duplicate EPIC cards. Despite numerous notices submitted by Opposition parties, the PM Narendra Modi-led government deliberately stonewalled every attempt to address this serious electoral concern throughout the entire Parliament Session, Banerjee said.

Trinamool has questioned how the ECI plans to proceed with Aadhaar linking before addressing these existing duplicate EPIC issues, demanding transparency on “the total number of duplicate EPICs that currently exist.”

“A compromised electoral roll is a compromised democracy. @BJP4India is dodging accountability, and @ECISVEEP’s inaction makes it complicit. Today, after confronting ECI, our MPs marched to Vijay Chowk, protesting against the unholy BJP-ECI nexus that seeks to erode India’s electoral integrity and manipulate the people’s mandate,” Trinamool Congress in a post on X said.

The TMC leaders marched from the EC office to Vijay Chowk and then to the Parliament complex, where they staged a protest over the issue. The MPs held up placards displaying images of voter-identity cards, with the word “duplicate” written on it.