Aadhar card will be linked to voter ID, big decision of Election Commission

New Delhi: In the coming months, the campaign to link voter ID card to Aadhar card will be intensified. The Election Commission will take appropriate action to link EPIC to Aadhar number while staying within the constitutional limits as per Article 326, RP Act, 1950 and the decisions of the Supreme Court.

In this regard, technical consultation between experts of UIDAI and ECI will start soon. The Election Commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi, held an important meeting today at its headquarters Nirvachan Sadan with the Union Home Secretary, Secretary of the Ministry of Law, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and CEO of UIDAI and technical experts of the Election Commission.

According to Article 326 of the Indian Constitution, voting rights can be given only to a citizen of India. Whereas Aadhar card only establishes the identity of the person. Therefore, it was decided that linking of EPIC with Aadhaar will be done only in accordance with the provisions of Article 326 of the Constitution, Sections 23(4), 23(5) and 23(6) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the decision of the Supreme Court in WP (Civil) No. 177/2023.

Technical consultations between technical experts of UIDAI and ECI are also going to start soon. To ensure fair and transparent elections in the country, the Election Commission has resolved to find a permanent and scientific solution to the allegations of discrepancies in the voter list. This step is being taken to ensure the identification of those voters who are registered as voters at more than one place.

This meeting has been held at a time when many political parties like Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (SCP) and BJD have raised the issue of voters having the same EPIC number. The Commission has admitted that in some states the same numbers were re-issued by mistake due to faulty alphanumeric series, but this cannot be termed as fraud. Now the Commission has taken active steps to find a concrete solution to this issue.