Lok Sabha passes Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021 to link Voter ID with Aadhaar

The Lok Sabha on Monday passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021 which seeks to enable electoral authorities to mandate linking voter identity cards with Aadhaar. .The Bill proposes to allow electoral registration officers to seek the Aadhaar number of people who want to register themselves as voters "for the purpose of establishing the identity".The bill also allows 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".Towards this end, it seeks to insert sub-section (3) in Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The said provision reads as follows:"The electoral registration officer may for the purpose of establishing the identity of any person require that such person may furnish the Aadhaar number given by the Unique Identification Authority of India as per the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016: Provided that the electoral registration officer may also require the Aadhaar number from persons already included in the electoral roll for the purposes of authentication of entries in electoral roll and to identify registration of name of the same person in the electoral roll of more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency."The bill also seeks to amend Sections 20 and 60 of the Representation of People's Act, which will allow elections to become gender-neutral for service voters. The amendment will replace the word "wife" with the word "spouse" making the statutes "gender neutral." While introducing the Bill, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said the legislation will end bogus voting in the country and make the electoral process more credible. .While opposing the bill, the opposition parties contended that it will violate the Supreme Court judgement on Aadhaar. “We are forgetting that Aaadhaar was only meant to be a proof of residence and not a proof of citizenship,” said Congress MP (Thiruvananthapuram) Shashi. All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen MP from Hyderabad Asaduddin Owaisi contended that the Bill will allow the government to ‘profile and disenfranchise’ voters and demanded a division vote..[Read Bill]