Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar on Sunday clarified the concerns raised about duplicate EPICs and voter roll discrepancies, stressing that the Election Commission of India (ECI) “stands like a rock with the voters.”
Addressing the issue of duplicate EPICs, Kumar said, “Duplicate EPICs can happen in two ways. One, that a person who is in West Bengal, who is a different person, has one EPIC number and another person who is in Haryana has the same EPIC number. When this question came up around March 2025, we discussed it and we solved it across the country. About three lakh such people were found, whose EPIC number were the same, so their EPIC numbers were changed.”
He further explained that duplication also arises when one person’s name appears on multiple voter lists with different EPIC numbers. “Before 2003, if you wanted to get your name deleted from the old place, then there was no website of the Election Commission, which had all the data at one place… So, since technical facilities were not available before 2003, many such people who migrated to different places, their names were added to many places,” he said.
Kumar cautioned against hurried deletions, warning that “if this is done in a hurry, then any voter’s name can be deleted wrongly. Someone else’s name will be deleted in your place.”
CEC Gyanesh Kumar On ‘House No. 0’, Allegations of Fake Voters
Responding to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s charge that 80,000 voters with “house number 0” were fake, the CEC dismissed the claim as baseless.
He said, “It is not necessary that in every panchayat or municipality, even if your house has a number, that number is given. The EC tracks down each voter to ensure their right to vote. In Arunachal, there is a village called Malegaon where officials trek to enable even one woman voter to cast her vote. Behind the Gir forest, there is a hermit for whom a booth is set up after a one-and-a-half-day trek. With such dedication, if allegations are made that theft is happening, it is wrong. People understand this.”
Clarifying the “0” entries, Kumar added, “Many people do not have houses… their address is shown as the place where they sleep at night, sometimes by the roadside, under a bridge or beside a lamp post. To say they are fake voters is a huge injustice to the poor. In this country, crores of houses have number 0 because panchayats or municipalities have not allotted them a number. In cities, unauthorised colonies also do not have numbers. So what address should they fill in forms? The EC instructs that such voters will be given a notional number. When it is entered into the computer, it shows as 0. This does not mean the voter is fake.”
He underlined that nationality, age, and residence near the polling booth, not the precise house number, are the real criteria for voter eligibility.
CEC Gyanesh Kumar On ‘Vote Chori’ Allegations
Kumar strongly countered allegations of “vote chori” and breaches of voter privacy, calling such accusations “an insult to the Constitution of India.”
He said, “When seven crore voters of Bihar stand with the Election Commission, then neither can any question mark be raised on the credibility of the Election Commission nor on the credibility of the voters. As per the law, if errors in the voter lists are not shared in time, or petitions are not filed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court within 45 days of the election, and then words like ‘vote theft’ are used, it is nothing but an insult to the Constitution of India.”
On Congress’s demand for a machine-readable voter list, Kumar cited the Supreme Court’s 2019 verdict. “The machine-readable voter list is prohibited. This decision of the Election Commission is after the judgement of the Supreme Court and is from 2019,” he told ANI.
He warned against privacy breaches, pointing to recent incidents where voter photos were shared with the media. “Should CCTV videos of our mothers, daughters and daughters-in-law be shared by the Election Commission? The voter list contains only those entitled to vote, and in such a transparent process with over one crore officials, more than 10 lakh booth-level agents and over 20 lakh polling agents, can any voter really commit theft of votes?”
CEC Gyanesh Kumar On Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision
The CEC defended the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, insisting the process was transparent. “Voters have submitted a total of 28,370 claims and objections… All political parties and BLOs are verifying, signing and giving video testimonials. It is concerning if such verified documents are not reaching state or national leaders, or if ground reality is being ignored to spread confusion,” he said.
Reaffirming neutrality, he stated, “When attempts are made to target India’s voters by placing the gun on the Election Commission’s shoulder, today the Commission wants to clarify that it has always stood, continues to stand, and will stand like a rock with all voters — poor or rich, elderly, women, or youth — without any discrimination.”
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