The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 that seeks to link Aadhaar with Voter ID was passed in the Lok Sabha on December 20 and is set to be introduced in the Rajya Sabha on December 21. Upon introducing the bill in Parliament, the government caused a huge uproar among politicians and civil society who have opposed the proposed legislation on the grounds that it is against the fundamental Right to Privacy and that it will enable surveillance and profiling of voters. We have summarised the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, also known as the Amendments to the Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1950 and 1951 here. Names will not be deleted if Aadhaar is not furnished Under amendments to Section 23 of the RP Act, 1950, the central government has proposed that the electoral registration officer can require any person to "furnish the Aadhaar number " as per the provisions of the Aadhaar Act 2016 for 'establishing the identity of the person'. These are the other amendments under Section 23 — Aadhaar may also be required from those already in electoral rolls: The bill said that the electoral registration officer can also ask those whose name is already in the electoral rolls to provide their Aadhaar number "for authentication of entries in electoral roll', and also to identify if their names are in electoral rolls of more than one constituency; or to identify if his or her name is repeated more than once in the same constituency. Aadhaar details have to be…
