EC's proposed consultations with UIDAI to 'clean up' voter lists acceptance of our charge Congress

    New Delhi, Mar 18 (PTI) The Congress on Tuesday said the EC agreeing to hold technical consultations between its experts and UIDAI to "clean up" voter lists was a clear acknowledgement of the charge the party made about suspicious names in electoral rolls.
    Former Congress president and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said the Election Commission (EC) announced on Tuesday that it would link Aadhaar with voter IDs.
    The Congress and INDIA bloc parties have been repeatedly raising issues of voter lists, including abnormally high additions, unexpected deletions and duplicate voter ID numbers, he said.
    "Now that the EC has acknowledged the problem, I reiterate my earlier demand that it should also address the issue of additions and deletions, starting by publicly sharing the entire electoral photo rolls of the Maharashtra 2024 Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections," he said in a post on X.
    "While Aadhaar may address duplicate voter ID numbers, the poorest and the most marginalised are more likely to face difficulties in the linking process. The EC must ensure that no Indian should be deprived of their vote, and address privacy concerns," Gandhi added.
    In a statement, the Congress' Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) said, acknowledging the party's charge, the EC was seeking to clean up the electoral rolls using Aadhaar.
    "The Congress welcomes a constructive solution with guardrails to not deny anyone the right to vote," it said.
    It said the EC on Tuesday issued a statement confirming its intent to link the elector photo identity card (EPIC) with Aadhaar. This was decided in a meeting of election commissioners with officers of the government of India and technical experts.
    "It is a clear acknowledgement of the charge that the Congress and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi have been making about the suspicious and dubious nature of our voter lists, as witnessed in the recent Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections. We continue to demand that the Election Commission make public the entire electoral photo rolls of the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections," the group of leaders said said in a statement.
    The Congress' main charge was there had been an abnormal increase in new voters enrolled in just five months between the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra, implying that either these were fake, duplicate or ghost voters, they said.
    "Fake or duplicate voters is a problem of one person having multiple voter IDs. The Election Commission has acknowledged this problem of 'one person many voter IDs' raised by the Congress, which can be eliminated through de-duplication using Aadhaar," the group of leaders said.
    "The Congress supports constructive solutions that ensure clean voter lists, in line with Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's assertion made in 1949 that 'electoral rolls are most fundamental in a democracy and the independence of the elections process is a fundamental right'," they further said.
    "But at the same time, it is important that no adult Indian citizen is denied the right to vote due to Aadhaar linkage. The Congress urges the Election Commission to consult with all political parties and stakeholders, and assure them that there are sufficient guardrails to not deny the right to vote to even a single eligible citizen as well as the privacy of any single voter is not breached through this process," they added.
    The EC on Tuesday said linkage of voter cards with Aadhaar would be done according to the prevailing law and the Supreme Court's directions and added technical consultations between its experts and UIDAI for the exercise would "begin soon".
    The EC held a meeting with the Union home secretary, legislative secretary (in the law ministry), MeitY secretary and the UIDAI CEO on the issue of voter card-Aadhaar seeding.
    The Congress had earlier termed as "duplicitous" the poll authority's explanation on duplicate voter ID numbers and asked it to come clean on the issue.
    Amid allegations of a cover-up over duplicate voter ID numbers, the poll authority had said it would address the "decades-long" matter in three months.
    The Congress had also accused the EC of being "complicit" in voter list "manipulation" and asserted that the party was actively working to seek a remedy through legal, political and legislative means.
    The group of senior leaders had questioned the EC's silence on multiple voters having the same ID and said the party would not let this issue fade due to the grave danger it posed to the country's electoral democracy.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)