Complaints galore in Voter ID card programme

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, OCT. 4. The Election Commission's (EC) bid to speed up the renewed `Electors Photo Identity Cards' (EPIC) programme in Tamil Nadu without any realistic time-frame, is only causing more headaches to the EC, with serious irregularities and deficiencies coming to the fore.

Disappointed with just a 57 per cent coverage till early September, The Election Commissioner, Mr. T. S. Krishnamurthy, who had reviewed the `on line' EPIC programme last month, sought to give a big push to this programme so that there could be a ``substantial increase'' in the voters coverage by October-end.

The State Election Department, in fine tuning the EPIC campaign to a faster mode by targeting all the districts simultaneously - starting the programme in a few districts was termed a lacuna by the EC -, roping in a third agency for the on-line issuance programme and also taking steps to identify `dead voters', has not yet yielded the desired results.

On the contrary, there are already serious complaints from ranging from `distortion in basic data' of voters in the EPIC to alleged generation of `bogus' cards through `ingenious' methods. And all this after the EC had issued a detailed manual necessitating sophisticated software to ensure the uniqueness of each `EPIC number'.

Uncovering the first instances of `gross irregularities' in the issuance of EPIC in Chennai, the CPI(M)'s Tamil Nadu State Committee, today submitted a petition to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Mr. Debendranath Sarangi, listing some blatant violations.

The CPI(M), in its petition, stated that not only a voter was being allegedly photographed in various poses that enabled getting an EPIC ``in different wards under different names'', but also brought to the CEO's notice a concrete case of a voter in Saidapet Assembly segment, approaching for his card, being told at the designated photography location (DPL) that ``his photograph had already been taken and the card issued.''

``Despite the voter furnishing his ration card and driving licence to establish his identity, his EPIC has been withheld though the DPL took his photograph,'' the CPI(M) State Secretary, Mr. N. Sankariah said in the petition, adding, ``this is a clear case of impersonation.''

Charging that the basic correlation of the residual voter who comes to the DPL for an EPIC with his/her name in the electoral rolls had not been verified properly, the CPI(M) said that in Saidapet Assembly segment alone a ``substantial number'' of bogus voter identity cards have been ``generated''.

The party demanded probe by a high level committee into the irregularities in Saidapet Assembly segment, cancellation of the `bogus' cards and action taken against the erring officials.

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Section  : Southern States
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