New Delhi: In the midst of protest by the opposition parties over the Electoral Reform Bill, the government restated why the bill is the necessary. Centre also gave a detailed information about the benefits the bill will propose in the electoral system.
The bill is now set to be presented before the Rajaya Sabha today for debate. Earlier the opposition had created a ruckus over the passage of the bill in Lok Sabhaon Monday. The opposition demands the bill to be presented in the standing committee.
Meanwhile, the people closely associated with the formulation of the legislation, said that the ‘Election Laws (Amendment) bill 2021’ incorporates various electoral reforms which have been discussed for a long time.
They added that registration in electoral roll is done based on an application by a person who is eligible to be registered as a voter. This bill has a provision whereby the new applicant may voluntarily provide Aadhaar number along with the application for the purpose of identity.
The people cited above further said that no application will be rejected on the grounds that Aadhaar number has not been provided – a reiteration of what Union law minister Kiren Rijiju said on Monday after the passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha.
So how will the proposed reforms in the electoral system help in sieving out fake voters? “Aadhaar linking with electoral roll will solve one of the major problems in Electoral database management which is multiple enrolment of the same person at different places,” said people aware of the developments.
“This may be due to the frequent shifting of residence by electors and getting enrolled in the new place without deleting the previous enrolment. Thus, the possibility of electors whose names appear in more than one electoral roll or at times more than once in the same electoral roll can be removed,” they added.
The government functionaries also said on the condition of anonymity that once Aadhaar linkage is achieved, the electoral roll data system will instantly alert the existence of previous registration whenever a person applies for new registration. “This will help in cleaning the electoral roll to a great extent and facilitate elector registration in the location at which they are ‘ordinarily resident’.”
Congress Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, however, alleged that the proposed bill is related to the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
“I don’t know why the government was in hurry to pass Election Laws (Amendment) Bill. It should have been sent to a standing committee. We still don’t have a data protection law. This may impact people’s voting rights,” Chowdhury said on Monday.
The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 seeks to allow electoral registration officers to seek the Aadhaar number of people who want to register as voters for the purpose of establishing identity.
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