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NEW DELHI: The Union Cupboard on Wednesday cleared proposed amendments to the electoral legislation in search of to usher in key electoral reforms reminiscent of linkage of voter ID with Aadhaar in order to weed out bogus and duplicate entries within the electoral roll. Sources indicated that one other reform sought to be carried out is permitting a number of dates in a 12 months, relatively than solely January 1, for these above 18 years, to register themselves as voters.
The draft Invoice to amend the Illustration of the Individuals Act authorised by the Cupboard and prone to be introduced earlier than Parliament within the ongoing winter session, purportedly proposes to make gender-neutral a provision permitting solely the spouse of a male service voter to register as a voter in the identical constituency as him. A fourth probably modification seeks to empower the EC to requisition premises for any goal associated to election and never only for creating polling stations and storage of poll packing containers.
Sources mentioned the Invoice to amend R P Act proposes to empower the electoral registration officer to hunt Aadhaar variety of current in addition to new voters, albeit solely on a voluntary foundation. The Aadhaar quantity will solely be used for the aim of voter authentication.
Whereas the a number of dates for registration of newly-eligible voter – Cupboard is alleged to have cleared 4 dates of January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 in a given 12 months – can be made doable via an modification to Part 14(b) of R P Act, the gender-neutral registration facility for spouses of service voters is sought to be carried out by amending Part 20(6) of R P Act. Additionally, the proposed modification to Part 160(1)A of R P Act will empower the EC to requisition premises for any goal together with for housing Central para-military forces, its staff and observers.
By the way, the EC had in 2015 taken up linking of voter card and Aadhaar quantity as a part of its Nationwide Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP). Round 32 crore Aadhaar numbers had been seeded by the point the EC determined to desert the programme in view of the Supreme Court docket judgment proscribing using Aadhaar.
Following the SC judgment in 2019 permitting assortment of Aadhaar with due modification in Aadhaar Act, the EC wrote to the legislation ministry in search of an appropriate modification to allow obligatory linking of voter card with Aadhaar. This was agreed to by the legislation ministry.
EC officers mentioned Aadhaar-EPIC linkage may also assist realise the fee’s plan to work in direction of safe, probably digital, voting to assist migrant voters — together with home employees, migrant labourers and so on — train their franchise even when they don’t seem to be within the constituency the place they’re registered as voters. “Their identification having been adequately verified, the fee can discover expertise that may allow them to vote from a distant location guarded by the EC,” an officer mentioned.
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