Linking Aadhaar with voter card not mandatory, says govt

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 16

The government today informed the Lok Sabha that the names of voters, who do not link their Aadhaar number with the voter card, would not be struck off the electoral rolls.

Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju, while replying to a written question in the House, noted that linking an Aadhaar number with an election identity card was “voluntary”.

“The Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, allows electoral registration officers to require existing or prospective electors to provide Aadhaar number for the purpose of establishing identity on a voluntary basis,” he said.

The Election Commission (EC) launched a programme to collect the Aadhaar numbers of existing and prospective electors on a voluntary basis from August 1 in all states/UTs.

“It is voluntary to link Aadhaar with a voter ID and consent is obtained from the elector for Aadhaar authentication on Form 6B, which was recently introduced,” the minister added.

Rijiju, however, made it clear that “there is no provision for withdrawing the consent” after sharing Aadhaar details.

Asked whether the name of the voters, whose voter IDs are not linked with Aadhaar, would be deleted from the electoral rolls, the Minister replied in the negative.

The minister informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that more than 54 crore of the nearly 95 crore voters had opted to link their Aadhaar details with the voter list. He had said linking of Aadhaar was “process driven” and “no targets have been given” for linking Aadhaar with election photo identity card. — TNS

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