The Law Ministry has informed the Lok Sabha that it has a proposal from the Election Commission (EC) to link the Aadhaar card with the Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) to prepare an error free electoral roll .
In response to an unstarred question on Wednesday, the Law Ministry said ‘the matter is under consideration’.
“In order to ensure preparation of an error free electoral roll, and to prevent duplication of entries , a proposal to amend the Representation of People’s Act 1951 to enable linking of the electoral data with the Aadhaar system has been received from the Election Commission,” the Law Ministry said in its reply.
Government officials asserted that the issue had come up about three weeks ago in a meeting between Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora, Election Commissioners Ashok Lavasa and Sunil Chandra and Secretary Legislative Department G. Narayana Raju when they had discussed pending electoral reforms.
One of the arguments being made in favour of the move is that it may allow migrant labour and workers to vote even if they are away from their homes at the time of elections.
Former CEC H. S. Brahma told The Hindu that the process of seeding Aadhaar with the voter ID card had started in 2012 during his tenure but was subsequently stalled because of a pending litigation on Aadhaar.
“This is a very good move as it will not only help us getting rid of bogus voters but will also help easy movement of voters once Aadhaar system and election data is linked,” Mr. Brahma said.
