Linking of Aadhaar, electoral data under examination: Minister

New Delhi: Minister of Law and Justice, Communications and Electronics Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Lok Sabha that process to link Aadhaar with the electoral roll is “under examination.”

Error-free electoral rolls

Responding to a question in the House, Prasad said, “In order to ensure preparation of error-free electoral rolls and to prevent duplication of entries, a proposal to amend Representation of the People Act, 1951 to enable linking of electoral data with Aadhar system has been received from the Election Commission. The matter is under examination.”

Linking of Aadhar with electoral roll has been a popular demand, a petition demanding the same, was filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay before the Delhi High Court.

However, a division bench of the High Court presided over by Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice C. Harishankar, disposed of the petition filed by BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay and asked the Election Commission to take a decision on the matter, within eight weeks.

Aadhaar-based voting system

The petition sought for implementation of an Aadhaar-based voting system as the current system “lacks transparency”.

Upadhyay also suggested for an e-voting system which would use fingerprint and face biometrics to eliminate bogus voting and duplicity.

“In this system, the database would be updated every time before an election. The main benefits are that voting process shall be much speedy and most of the tasks shall be done automatically by the system,” his petition said.

The plea claimed that linking of election identity cards with Aadhaar to curtail bogus voting.