How Election Laws (Amendment) bill 2021 will incorporate electoral reforms

New Delhi, Dec 21: The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which seeks to link electoral rolls with the Aadhaar ecosystem to weed out duplication, was introduced in Lok Sabha on Monday.

The Opposition parties led by the Congress said that the Bill will infringe the fundamental rights of the citizens. They also alleged that the Bill would violate the order of the Supreme Court on Aadhaar.

The 'Election Laws (Amendment) bill 2021' incorporates various electoral reforms which have been discussed for a long time.

Registration in electoral roll is done based on an application by a person who is eligible to be registered as a voter. This bill has a provision whereby the new applicant may voluntarily provide Aadhaar number along with the application for the purpose of identity. No application will be rejected on the grounds that Aadhaar number has not been provided, officials tell OneIndia.

Aadhaar linking with electoral roll will solve one of the major problems in Electoral database management which is multiple enrolment of the same person at different places, the officials cited above said.

This may be due to the frequent shifting of residence by electors and getting enrolled in the new place without deleting the previous enrolment. Thus, the possibility of electors whose names appear in more than one electoral roll or at times more than once in the same electoral roll can be removed.

Once Aadhaar linkage is achieved, the electoral roll data system will instantly alert the existence of previous registration(s) whenever a person applies for new registration. This will help in cleaning the electoral roll to a great extent and facilitate elector registration in the location at which they are 'ordinarily resident'.