New Delhi:
Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has called a discussion with top government officials and the chief executive of the Aadhaar body to discuss linking of the unique identity number with voter cards, sources said today.
The Election Commissioner’s move comes amid the Opposition’s allegations over the existence of a massive number of duplicate voter identity cards, or EPIC, short for electronic electoral photo identity card.
The meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, sources said. Those invited to attend include the home secretary, secretary of legislative department, and CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), sources said.
Mr Kumar is taking proactive and definitive steps to resolve legacy issues which have been pending for decades, sources said, adding he has not completed even a month since taking charge.
In short, the new Chief Election Commissioner is looking to resolve the duplicate voter ID card issue which has been pending for nearly 25 years in the next three months.
The Election Commissioner will be conducting all-party meetings at the levels of electoral registration officers (EROs), district election officers (DEOs), and chief electoral officers (CEOs) before March 31, sources said.
They said Mr Kumar will seek suggestions from all national and state parties within the legal framework by April 30, which would be an exercise done for the first time in decades.
Field-level political agents including booth-level agents, polling agents, counting agents, and election agents will be trained about their key roles as per a legal framework for the first time, sources said.
They said all Indians who are over 18 years old should be able to vote, and linking Aadhaar with EPIC is one step in the right direction.
Flagging alleged cases of duplicate voter card numbers allocated to people in different states, the Opposition Trinamool Congress alleged the Election Commission has been fudging the voters’ lists to help the BJP.
Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi also made similar allegations.
The law allows voluntary seeding of voter rolls with the Aadhaar database. The government told parliament the Aadhaar and voter card linking exercise was “process driven” and no target or timelines have been given for the proposed linking.
The government said the names of those who do not link their Aadhaar with EPIC will not be struck off the electoral rolls.
Trinamool Reacts
Soon after reports of the meeting called by the chief election commissioner came, the Trinamool Congress jumped in with a swipe at the EC that it was a “face-saving measure”.
Trinamool leader Sagarika Ghose said the statements issued by the ECI over duplicate EPIC numbers and the meeting being called now are “face-saving measures”.
“First, three statements. Now this meeting. This is just a face-saving measure. We will keep a hawk-eye vigil till the elections,” Ms Ghose said.
On March 11, a 10-member Trinamool delegation met the full Election Commission bench over the duplicate EPIC numbers.
The duplication of voter ID card numbers in different states was raised by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on February 27.
The Election Commission on March 2 in a statement said identical EPIC numbers or series were allotted to some electors from different states and Union Territories due to a “decentralised and manual mechanism” being followed prior to shifting of the electoral roll database of all states to the ERONET (Electoral Roll Management) platform.
They said while EPIC numbers of some voters “may be identical”, the other details — including demographic details, assembly constituency and polling booth — are different.