Aadhaar-Voter ID link: Election Commission's nationwide drive from today – Why it is needed?

Aadhaar-Voter ID Link: The Election Commission of India will launch a campaign from today to link voter identity (ID) cards with Aadhaar. The commission has asked all states' chief electoral officers (CEO) to undertake this drive from today.

“On the instructions of the Election Commission, the process of voluntarily collecting Aadhaar numbers from the voters enrolled in the electoral roll will start from August 1,” Uttar Pradesh CEO Ajay Kumar Shukla said.

Former Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra had said that the sharing of Aadhaar details will be voluntary, but voters will need to give sufficient reason for not linking the unique identification number to their voter ID cards, according to a PTI report. 

The government earlier in June amended the Registration of Electors Rules to allow linking Aadhaar details with a voters list to weed out duplicate entries and make election law gender neutral for service voters, a PTI report said quoting union minister Kiren Rijiju. 

The Legislative Department in the Union Law Ministry issued notifications announcing that the rules have been amended in line with the provisions of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021 passed by Parliament in December last year. 

The Registration of Electors (Amendment) Rules, 2022 will come into force on August 1. 

A new form "6B" has been introduced to allow existing voters to share their Aadhaar numbers. 

Aadhaar-Voter ID link purpose 

Those who do not have an Aadhaar card, have the option of sharing other proofs such as MNREGA job card, health insurance smart card issued under the scheme of the Ministry of Labour, driving license, and PAN card, the report also said. 

The linking of voter ID to Aadhaar will be done to establish the identity of electors and authentication of entries in the electoral roll and to identify the registration of the name of the same person in more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency, Shrikant Deshpande, Chief Election Officer, Maharashtra told news agency ANI.