New Delhi: The Centre is working on a Bill to amend the election law to mandatorily link Aadhaar with voter identity card. The objective is to clean up electoral rolls, remove duplication, and facilitate migrant workers to vote remotely.
Sources in Opposition parties said the government — when the Bill is introduced and debated in Parliament — would need to allay their fears that this might become a tool to disenfranchise people. According to sources, the Union Law Ministry is likely to prepare a Cabinet note soon to amend the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Meanwhile, the government has said that the linkage of Aadhaar with voter ID will remove bogus entries, clean up electoral rolls and give remote voting rights.
According to sources in the Election Commission, the Centre is preparing to make the required legal changes to ensure linkage of Aadhaar with voter ID.
During a meeting held Tuesday to discuss electoral reforms, the Law Ministry conveyed to the Election Commission that the Centre is preparing to make the required legal amendment to the Aadhaar Act. The amendment will legally empower the Election Commission to link Aadhaar with voter identity card. Chief election commissioner Sunil Arora and election commissioners, Ashok Lavasa and Sunil Chandra, had met legislative affairs secretary G Narayan Raju and additional secretary Rita Vashishth Tuesday to discuss pending electoral reforms.
Sources within the government have said that the Law Ministry may soon move a note before the Union Cabinet for the decision. As per these sources, the linking is expected to be live before the crucial Bihar Assembly election slated towards the end of the year.
The EC officials say the linkage will solve two issues that the commission has been highlighting – the issue of duplication in electoral rolls and allowing citizens to vote from anywhere.
The EC is looking at making it possible for a person who stays in Gurgaon to vote during Bihar election from his place itself.
The demand for linking Aadhaar with voter ID has been around since 2015. The EC had in 2015 taken up the matter as part of its National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme. Around 32 crore Aadhaar numbers were seeded, but the plan was put on hold after Supreme Court judgment on restricting the use of Aadhaar.