Notification allowing linking Aadhaar with voter list issued: Kiren Rijiju

The government on Friday issued rules allowing linking of electoral roll data with Aadhaar, making electoral law gender neutral for service voters and enabling young citizens register as voters four times a year instead of the present one.

Four notifications were issued under the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 passed by Parliament late last year to bring in the rules.

Law Minister Kiren Rijiju took to Twitter to announce that four notifications in this regard have been issued in consultation with the Election Commission.

The government has all along maintained that sharing of Aadhaar details will be voluntary.

The Election Laws (Amendment) Act seeks to allow electoral registration officers to seek Aadhaar number of people who want to register as voters "for the purpose of establishing the identity".

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It also seeks to allow the electoral registration officers to ask for Aadhaar numbers from "persons already included in the electoral roll for the purposes of authentication of entries in the electoral roll, and to identify registration of the name of the same person in the electoral roll of more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency".

At the same time, the bill as passed by Parliament makes it clear that "no application for inclusion of name in the electoral roll shall be denied and no entries in the electoral roll shall be deleted for the inability of an individual to furnish or intimate Aadhaar number due to such sufficient cause as may be prescribed".

In an interview to PTI on May 14, the then chief election commissioner Sushil Chandra had said that sharing Aadhaar details will be voluntary for voters, but those not doing so will have to give "sufficient reasons".

Rijiju shared a chart to say that the notifications will enable "linking of electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem to curb the menace of multiple enrolment of the same person in different places".

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He also said that now a citizen who turns 18 on the January 1 or April 1 or July 1 or October 1 in a calendar year can immediately apply for voter registration.

"The four qualifying dates will considerably enhance the voter base," he said.

As of now, January 1 is the only cut off date to register as a voter. Those turning 18 on or before January 1 can register as voters on day one of January. Those turning 18 after that have to wait for one whole year.

On making electoral law gender neutral, Rijiju said the word "wife" will be substituted with the word "spouse" making the statutes gender neutral which shall allow the wife or husband of a service voter to avail the voting facility available.

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Soldiers deployed in far flung areas or members of Indian missions abroad are some of the people considered as service voters.

An army man's wife is entitled to be enrolled as a service voter, but a woman army officer's husband is not, according to provisions in the electoral law. But now it will change. The poll panel had asked the law ministry to replace the term wife' with spouse' in the provision in the Representation of the People Act related to service voters. Another provision of the proposed bill will allow the youth to enrol as voters on four different dates every year. As of now, those turning 18 on or before January 1 of every year are only allowed to register as voters.

Rijiju said the Election Commission can now requisition any premises for storage of poll related material and accommodation for security forces and polling personnel.

The law minister described it as a "historic step" of the Narendra Modi government to reform the electoral process.