Under this serious initiative being taken with the objective of ensuring more transparency in elections and only one EPIC i.e. voter ID card for a voter, on Tuesday, the Union Home Secretary will hold important discussions with the Law Secretary and the CEO of the Aadhaar scheme i.e. UIDAI. According to highly placed sources in the Commission, the objective of this will be to make it scientific and legal to remove the names of fake voters from the voter list if the name of the same voter is in the voter list of many cities or booths and there are different voter ID cards.
Under this initiative, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Dr Vivek Joshi will hold a meeting with Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Law Secretary Rajiv Mani and UIDAI CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar on Tuesday. This meeting is taking place at a time when the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SCP) in Maharashtra and BJD in Odisha have raised the issue of voters having the same EPIC number before the media and the commission.
On this, the Election Commission has also accepted that in some states the same numbers were issued again due to wrong alphanumeric series. But, those voters cannot be called fake on this basis alone. Now the Commission is taking steps to do surgery of that problem.
To bring more transparency in the commission and take steps towards giving only one EPIC to a voter, the Election Commission has directed all the District Election Officers (DEO) to hold extensive meetings with political parties. Under this, more than 5000 meetings will be held in about 800 districts across the country, the report of which will have to be submitted to the commission by March 31.
The commission has also asked all the District Election Officers (DEOs) across the country to hold meetings with political parties. Under this, more than 5000 meetings will be held with political parties in about 800 districts. The report of which is planned to be submitted to the commission by March 31.
However, the Election Commission (EC) had told the Supreme Court in response to a notice on a PIL in 2023 that it is not mandatory to provide Aadhaar number to join the voter list. But it is considering issuing “appropriate explanatory changes” in the nomination form to reflect this. Then, senior advocates Sukumar Pattjoshi and Amit Sharma, appearing for the Commission, told a three-judge bench headed by then CJI Justice DY Chandrachud that submission of Aadhaar number is not mandatory under Rule 26-B of the Voter Registration (Amendment) Rules 2022. But, now according to the time and situation, the Commission is discussing appropriate measures with various dimensions and stakeholders.
