The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was passed amidst heavy uproar in the Lok Sabha. This bill allows linking of voter list data with Aadhaar card. Along with this, it also included a proposal to replace the word ‘wife’ with the word ‘husband’ in the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Through this bill, there is a provision to link the voter card and list with the Aadhar card to prevent duplication and bogus voting in the voter list.
Parties like Congress, TMC, AIMIM, RSP, BSP opposed the introduction of this bill in the Lok Sabha. The Congress demanded that the bill be sent to the Standing Committee of Parliament for consideration. Law Minister Kiren Rijiju introduced the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and through this proposed amendments to the Representation of the People Act 1950 and the Representation of the People Act, 1951 in the House.
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Rejecting the apprehensions of the opposition members, Rijiju said that the arguments given by the members for opposing it are an attempt to misrepresent the Supreme Court’s decision. This is as per the decision of the top court.
He said that the government proposed to amend the Representation of the People Act to ensure that no person can register in more than one constituency and to prevent fraudulent voting.
Rijiju said that even after crossing 18 years in the system till now, many people are deprived of voting because there is only one cut-off date for registration on January 1 and registration of new voters takes place in it. He said that now there will be four dates regarding registration which will be January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1.
“We want the electoral roll to be good and everyone wants it,” he said. This is the reason why we are linking Aadhar card with voter list. After the minister’s reply, the House approved the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 by voice vote.
Opposition to the bill, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that it was against the Supreme Court’s decision in Puttuswamy. He said that we do not have a data protection law and cases of misuse of data have also come to the fore in the past. Chaudhary said that in such a situation, this bill should be withdrawn and it should be sent to the Standing Committee of Parliament for consideration.
Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM said that it violates the fundamental rights of the constitution and right to privacy. This bill is also against the provision of secret ballot, so we oppose this bill. TMC Saugata Roy said that the bill violates the Supreme Court’s decision and is against fundamental rights.
