Preparation to link voter card to Aadhaar: Expert discussion on the process will begin soon; The Supreme Court had stayed in 2015

The central government is preparing to link voter ID and Aadhaar. A meeting of officials of the Election Commission and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was held on Tuesday. It agreed to link both. Now the opinion of experts will be taken on this soon.

The commission says that the work of connecting the voter card with Aadhaar will be done as per the instructions of the existing law and the Supreme Court. Earlier in 2015, a similar effort has been made, but it was stopped after the Supreme Court order.

The Election Commission said, ‘According to Article 326 of the Constitution, the right to vote can only be given to the citizen of India, but the Aadhaar is only the identity of the individual. Therefore, it was decided that all laws would be followed to link the voter photo identity card to Aadhaar.

The Election Commission held a meeting with the Union Home Secretary, Legislative Secretary, MEITY Secretary and CEO of UIDAI on the issue of voter card-base seeding.

What is the process of linking right now

The law allows voter lists to voluntarily connect with the base database. The government has stated in Parliament that the process of linking the Aadhaar-Voter Card is already going on. No target or time limit was set for the proposed linking. The government also said that those who do not connect their Aadhaar card to the voter list, their names will not be cut from the voter list.

Election Commission sought suggestions before April 2025

According to sources in the Election Commission of India (ECI), the purpose of linking the voter-base is to increase transparency, inclusion and efficiency in the election process before the upcoming elections. The Election Commission will hold a meeting at the level of Election Registration Officers (ERO), District Election Officers (DEO) and Chief Election Officers (CEO) before 31 March.

For this, for the first time in the last 10 years, the Election Commission has officially sought suggestions from all national and state-recognized political parties within the legal structure till 30 April 2025.

Supreme Court has imposed a ban on linking voter ID to Aadhaar

The Election Commission has also tried to link the voter ID to Aadhaar. In 2015, the Election Commission ran the National Voter List Purification Program (NERPAP) from March 2015 to August 2015. At that time, the Election Commission had completed the process of linking more than 30 crore voter ID to Aadhaar. This process stopped after the Supreme Court order.

In fact, during the process of linking the voter ID to Aadhaar, the names of about 55 lakh people from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were withdrawn from the voter database. Regarding this, the matter had reached the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of Aadhaar and the apex court stopped the Election Commission from linking the voter ID and Aadhaar.

In its judgment on Aadhaar on 26 September 2018, the Supreme Court had clarified that apart from state subsidy and welfare schemes, Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for any service.