A high-level meeting between the Election Commission of India, Home Ministry, IT Ministry, Law Ministry and UIDAI took place on Tuesday. It was in this meeting that linking voter IDs with Aadhaar has been decided.
The ECI is said to collaborate with UIDAI to link Aadhaar and voter IDs while the Ministry of Law will make the required changes in Form 6B which contains information related to sharing of Aadhaar numbers. The entire process is voluntary but people refusing to link the two have to convey the reasons.
This meeting was the first one between the Union government and the Commission this year and comes after irregularities in electoral rolls pointed out by INDIA-bloc. It was over an hour-long discussion concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the drill.
Till 2023 the ECI has over 66 crore Aadhaar numbers of people who have voluntarily given the access but the linking has not been done for these voters. However, the plans focus on charting the strategy to do the process with the help of UIDAI.
The meeting consisted of the Chief Election Commissioner of India, UIDAI CEO, Home Secretary, and Law secretary. After the meeting, ECI declared to take action under the sections of the Representation of People’s Act, relevant judgments by the Supreme Court, and Article 326 of the constitution to link the Voter IDs with Aadhaar for an impartial, and transparent electoral process. The opposition remarked this move as a reaction to their alleged complaints against the problems in electoral roles in elections of Maharashtra held recently. In fact the EC has abided to replace the new EPIC to the affected voters and also ensured that it will look into any matter of concern regarding the same.
