LS clears Bill linking electoral rolls with Aadhaar, Oppn says violates SC order

Blurb: No deletion from voter list for not having it

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 20

The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which seeks to link voter identity cards with the Aadhaar number of citizens.

The Bill, however, has a caveat that no application for enrolling as voter may be rejected in the absence of Aadhaar as long as the voter provided alternate documents prescribed by the Election Commission.

The Bill proposes to allow electoral registration officers to seek Aadhaar numbers of people wanting to register themselves as voters “for the purpose of establishing identity”. It also allows the electoral registration officers to ask for Aadhaar numbers from “persons already included in the electoral roll for the purpose of authentication of entries in the electoral roll.

The government, in its reasoning, said “the linking of electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem will curb the menace of multiple enrolment of the same person in different places”. The Bill seeks to insert a sub-section in existing Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. It also seeks to amend Sections 20 and 60, which will allow elections to become gender-neutral for service voters. The amendment will replace the word “wife” with the word “spouse”, making the statutes “gender-neutral.”

While introducing the Bill, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said the legislation would end bogus voting and make the electoral process more credible.

Opposition parties contended that it would violate the Supreme Court judgement on Aadhaar. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, “We are forgetting that Aadhaar was only meant to be a proof of residence, and not a proof of citizenship.”

AIMIM MP from Hyderabad Asaduddin Owaisi contended that the Bill would allow the government to “profile and disenfranchise” voters.