EPIC battle set for Round 3

While the total number of candidates is 485, Electronic Photo Identity Cards8217; EPIC coverage in these three districts is 93 per cent. State chief electoral officer Debashis Sen said as many as 2.92 lakh names have been deleted from the electoral rolls, while 81,662 names have been added to the list.

About 10,000 non-EPIC certificates have been issued to voters of Kolkata to enable them to caste their votes.

Non-EPIC certificates are being issued to those who have neither EPICs nor any of the 13 documents specified by the EC for a voter to establish his or her identity.

Kolkata has the highest number of voters 8212; 15 per cent of the total electorate of the city 8212; who do not possess EPICs.

Chittaranjan Das, district electoral officer for Kolkata North-West district has an explanation for this: 8216;8216;Quite a few of this 15 per cent of people do have EPICs but the EPIC number is not mentioned against their names on the electoral rolls. Second, many of these people are educated and rich, with little time to wait in queues for hours. Almost all of them have one or more than one document to establish their identity. That is why they don8217;t bother to get themselves photographed.8217;8217;

The EC will take stern measures if any person is found to have obtained these forms through unfair means, Sen said. 8216;8216;Not only the person concerned, the officer who issues fake certificates will also face dire consequences,8217;8217; he added.