Ahead of the introduction of the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill that seeks to link Voter IDs with Aadhaar, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi has opposed it by claiming that it violates the Right to Privacy as set in the landmark Puttaswamy judgement. In a letter to the Secretary General of the Lok Sabha, Owaisi said that the bill is outside the "legislative competence of the house" as it violates fundamental rights of citizens. He specified that the linking of Aadhaar and Voter IDs will lead 'severe harms to the security of privacy and individuals'. Amid such concerns of profiling and privacy, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju introduced the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill in Lok Sabha on December 20. Given the majority that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance II enjoys in the lower house of the Parliament, this bill may soon be passed and enacted as law. Aadhaar-Voter ID linkage will lead to large-scale exclusions Owaisi said that linkage between Aadhaar and Voter IDs was tried out in other states, and that it led to large-scale exclusions. He did not expand on the matter. Owaisi was possibly referring to a pilot exercise which was first done in Nizamabad and Hyderabad districts of Telangana in 2014. Although the Supreme Court had halted this exercise in August 2015 (by limiting the mandatory usage of Aadhhaar for only welfare schemes), by then around 30 lakh voters were deleted in Telangana, a report said. [embed]https://twitter.com/digitaldutta/status/1472525936658567169[/embed] These…
