Currently not mandatory to link Aadhaar to electoral roll but with bill we'll sieve out fake voters: Kiren Rijiju

As Lok Sabha passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Monday said that currently, it's not mandatory to link Aadhaar to an electoral roll, but with this bill, Centre will make it mandatory to sieve out fake voters.
Speaking to ANI here in New Delhi, Kiren Rijiju said that it is currently not mandatory to link Aadhaar to an electoral roll, but with this bill, we will make it mandatory to sieve out fake voters. "The Parliamentary Standing Committee has recommended this and asked us to expedite the process of making this into an act." Rijiju said that there should be a proper discussion on election reforms.

The Opposition was asked to participate and voice their opinions in the discussion, but they created chaos. Rijiju said, "The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill proposes to replace the word 'wife' with 'spouse' to make the act (Representation of the People Act of 1951) gender-neutral. It will also expand the limits of the election premises acquisition." "Even after 18 years, the system said that one has to wait a whole year to exercise their voting rights if they could not register on January 1 (of the year of revision of electoral roll).This bill will allow 4 qualifying dates a year to register as voters," Rijiju said.

Amid uproar by the opposition, Lok Sabha passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill on Monday. The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 seeks to allow electoral registration officers to seek the Aadhaar number of people who want to register as voters "for the purpose of establishing identity.

"The Bill also seeks to allow the electoral registration officers to get Aadhaar numbers from "persons already included in the electoral roll for the purposes of authentication of entries in the electoral roll, and to identify registration of the name of the same person in the electoral roll of more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency."

Reacting to the introduction of the bill, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday said that the Centre is curtailing the independence of the Election Commission by bringing the legislation.