Over 54 crore voters have linked Aadhaar with electoral rolls, Law Minister says in a reply in the Rajya Sabha

Holding simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies would result in huge saving to the exchequer, Kiren Rijiju said in a separate written reply

Union Law Minister speaks in the Rajya Sabha during the winter session of Parliament in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: PTI

Over 54 crore voters out of a total of nearly 95 crore have opted to link their Aadhaar details with the electoral rolls, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju informed the Parliament on Thursday.

The government and the Election Commission of India (ECI) have said the exercise would weed out duplicate entries from the voters' list. "The process of Aadhaar linking with the Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) has begun and the concerned electors will be notified authentication result after obtaining the same from Unique Identification Authority of India," Mr. Rijiju said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

The Law Minister said that according to the information made available by the ECI, the total number of Form 6Bs submitted as on December 12 stood at 54,32,84,760.

In a separate written reply, Mr. Rijiju also provided information on simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies. The Minister said elections have become a "big budget affair" and holding simultaneous polls to Lok Sabha and State Assemblies would result in huge saving to the exchequer.

In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, he said the Law Commission in its report on Reforms in Electoral Laws had suggested simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for the sake of stability in governance.