ECI to Link Voter IDs with Aadhaar, Technical Talks with UIDAI Soon

The Election Commission of India (ECI) announced on Tuesday that it is gearing up to link Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) with Aadhaar numbers for voters who have voluntarily provided their details. The poll panel will soon initiate technical consultations with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to facilitate the process.

While the Aadhaar card serves as an identity document, voting rights are exclusively granted to Indian citizens under Article 326 of the Constitution, the ECI clarified in a statement. The move comes amid concerns raised by opposition parties regarding the integrity of electoral rolls, with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) flagging issues related to alleged ‘duplicate’ EPIC numbers.

High-Level Meeting at Nirvachan Sadan

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar, along with Election Commissioners Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr. Vivek Joshi, held a meeting on Tuesday with the Union Home Secretary, Secretary of the Legislative Department, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), CEO of UIDAI, and technical experts from ECI at Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi.

Following the deliberations, the ECI issued a communique stating: “The linking of EPIC with Aadhaar will be carried out in accordance with Article 326 of the Constitution, as well as Sections 23(4), 23(5), and 23(6) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The process will also align with the Supreme Court’s judgment in WP(Civil) No. 177/2023. Accordingly, technical consultations between UIDAI and ECI experts will commence soon.”

Aadhaar-EPIC Linking: A Long-Pending Initiative

The 2021 amendment to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, paved the way for Aadhaar-EPIC linking. Subsequently, the ECI began collecting Aadhaar numbers from electors on a voluntary basis. However, despite gathering the data, the commission has yet to initiate the actual linking of the two databases. The intended objective of this exercise is to detect and eliminate duplicate voter registrations. However, the ECI has reiterated that Aadhaar submission remains non-mandatory for voters.

The commission previously informed the Supreme Court in September 2023 that 66.23 crore voters had voluntarily submitted their Aadhaar details. Presently, India has an estimated 99.2 crore registered voters.

Addressing Concerns Over Duplicate EPICs

The TMC had recently expressed concerns regarding discrepancies in voter ID issuance, specifically citing instances of duplicate EPIC numbers. Responding to this, the ECI acknowledged that certain state Chief Electoral Officers had used incorrect alphanumeric series while generating voter IDs. However, the poll panel clarified that while some electors may have been assigned identical EPIC numbers, their dem