Election Laws (Amendment) Bill passed in the Lok Sabha

Election Laws (Amendment) Bill passed in the Lok Sabha

Passed on a voice vote, it links voter identity cards with Aadhaar cards

The Lok Sabha has passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 to link voter identity cards with Aadhaar cards. The Bill was passed in a voice vote.

The Bill allows electoral registration officers to seek the Aadhaar number of a person, wanting to register as a voter, "for the purpose of establishing his identity."

It also allows such 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."

However, the Bill makes it clear that "no application for inclusion of the 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."

The Bill seeks to amend certain sections of the Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1950 and 1951.

The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill stated that Section 23 of the RP Act, 1950 would be amended to allow linking of the electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem "to curb the menace of multiple enrolments of the same person in different places."

The amendment to the Act would allow having four "qualifying" dates for eligible people to register as voters. So, in the calendar year, 1 January, 1 April, 1 July, and 1 October would be the qualifying dates for the preparation or revision of electoral rolls. (Until now, 1 January was the only qualifying date).

The amendment would also allow the elections to become gender-neutral for service voters. It would replace the word "wife" with the word "spouse" making the statutes "gender-neutral."