Nearly 55 lakh voters in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were disenfranchised as a result of linking Voter IDs and Aadhaar, reports The Wire. The report states that only 30 lakh voters were deleted during the Aadhaar-Voter ID linkage process under NERPAP. However, it does not specify how the remaining 25 lakh votes were disenfranchised. Note that the Election Commission started linking voter IDs to Aadhaar in 2015. Earlier this week, Kiran Chandra, general secretary of the Free Software Movement of India, demanded, in a press conference that: “Complete details of all pilot programmes conducted in Telangana be disclosed with regard to Aadhaar-Voter ID linkage.” Destroy or delete Aadhaar-related data, saying that the then CEO supplied voter data to the state government “in clear violation of electoral laws.” How did voters get deleted from the rolls? According to Chandra, the State Resident Data Hub (SRDH) collates information from multiple state government departments and creates a repository of information. The Telangana SRDH collected citizens’ data, including personal information like caste and religion. He said that the SRDH used Aadhaar to interlink the siloed databases, and that the SRDH was linked to UIDAI servers to enable biometric authentication. Along with Chandra, data scientist and researcher Srinivas Kodali said that the ECI “abdicated its responsibility” as it failed to act on large-scale deletion of voters even after political parties complained to it. Aadhaar-Voter ID linking under NERPAP Further, the two pointed out that the chief electoral officer of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh began…
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