New Delhi, March 18 The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday said that it is getting ready to link Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC), or voter IDs, with the Aadhaar numbers of those who have provided them voluntarily.
In its reaction to the ECI’s statement, Congress said, “Acknowledging the Congress party’s charge of suspect voter lists, the Election Commission seeks to clean it up using Aadhaar.” “Congress party welcomes a constructive solution with guardrails to not deny anyone the right to vote,” said the party’s eight-member Empowered Action Group of Leaders and Experts (EAGLE) in a statement. This body was set up by the Congress to maintain a vigilant oversight of elections in India and ensure the ECI upholds the integrity of the electoral process.
The EAGLE further said that the ECI’s decision to link EPIC Voter-ID numbers with Aadhaar numbers is a “clear acknowledgement of the charge that the Congress party and the Leader of Opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi have been making about the suspicious and dubious nature of our voter lists, as witnessed in the recent Maharashtra 2024 Vidhan Sabha elections.”
“We continue to demand that the Election Commission make public the entire electoral photo rolls of Maharashtra 2024 Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha elections. The main charge of the Congress party was that there was an abnormal increase in new voters enrolled in just five months between the Maharashtra Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections, implying that either these were fake, duplicate or ghost voters,” stated the Congress’ EAGLE.
It stated further that 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 party, which can be eliminated through de-duplication using Aadhaar.”
The Congress party 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’, added the statement.
The party further remarked that it is important that no adult Indian citizen is denied the right to vote due to Aadhaar linkage. “The Congress party 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,” the statement maintained.
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