The Election Commission will shortly start integrating voter ID cards with Aadhaar; UIDAI specialists will be consulted on technical matters.
Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC), often known as voter IDs, will soon be linked to the Aadhaar numbers of people who voluntarily supply them, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
According to the poll panel, technical consultations with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on the exercise would shortly begin.
The election commission stated on Tuesday that although the Aadhaar card simply proves a person’s identify, voting rights are granted to Indian citizens only in accordance with Article 326 of the Indian Constitution.
At the time of the poll panel’s action, some opposition parties expressed doubts about the validity of the electoral rolls. “Duplicate” EPIC numbers have been brought up by the Trinamool Congress, which is led by Mamata Banerjee.
In Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi, on Tuesday, CEC Gyanesh Kumar, Election Commissioners Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi met with the Union Home Secretary, Secretary of the Legislative Department, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), CEO of UIDAI, and technical experts of the ECI.
It was therefore determined that the only way to link EPIC with Aadhaar would be in accordance with Article 326 of the Constitution, Sections 23(4), 23(5), and 23(6) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and the ruling of the Supreme Court in WP(civil) No. 177/2023. The poll panel stated in a news release following the meeting that technical conversations between UIDAI and the technical specialists of ECI will start shortly.
The election panel started gathering Aadhaar numbers from voters voluntarily after the Representation of the People Act, 1951, was amended in 2021 to allow Aadhaar connection with EPICs. Nevertheless, the poll panel has not yet connected the two databases. The purpose of the experiment was to help find duplicate voter ID registrations. Linking Aadhaar was not required, though.
Speaking with UIDAI
Accordingly, UIDAI and ECI’s technical specialists will soon start technical talks, the ECI statement stated.
The Supreme Court was informed by the EC in September 2023 that 66.23 crore voters have willingly provided their Aadhaar numbers. Currently, 99.2 crore people vote in India.
Following TMC’s objection, the Election Commission admitted that several state chief electoral officers had issued EPIC numbers using the incorrect alphanumeric sequence. The panel clarified that although some voters might have the same EPIC number, their information about their Assembly Constituency, demographics, and polling places may vary.
Voters with duplicate EPIC numbers will receive replacement numbers within three months, according to a recent announcement from the poll panel.
