Linking voter ID to Aadhaar not compulsory, Kiren Rijiju tells Lok Sabha

Linking is voluntary, requires voter's consent

The Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Friday said that those who haven't linked their voter IDs with Aadhaar will not be knocked off the electoral lists.

The Minister said this while answering questions from three Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha. He said the process of linking the Aadhar with the Voter ID is voluntary and the voter has to consent to do the same.  

He said the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, 2021, allows Electoral Registration Officers to require the voter to provide their Aadhaar number for identification. However, this is voluntary, he said.

Rijiju added thar the Election Commission of India (ECI) has launched the programme to collect the Aadhaar number of electors from August 1, 2022, in all States and Union Territories.

It is to be noted that there is no provision for withdrawing consent after the linking process has been done.

“It is voluntary to link Aadhaar with Voter ID and consent is obtained from the elector for Aadhaar authentication in Form 6B. There is no provision for withdrawing the consent,” he said.

Rijiju further elaborated that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UlDAl), under the Aadhaar(Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, and the regulations made thereunder, has made it compulsory for the centralised storage of all Aadhaar numbers in a different repository known as 'Aadhaar Data Vault'.

This means that The ECI follows the guidelines prescribed by UIDAI and does not store the Aadhaar numbers in its database. “The Aadhaar number is used only for authentication purposes and ECI does not retrieve any personal information from the UIDAI Aadhaar database,” he said.

The Supreme Court on October 31 this year, agreed to hear petitions challenging the Centre’s move to link voter Ids with Aadhaar. A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and AS Oka tagged similar petitions of the same nature challenging the amendments to the Aadhaar Act.

The petition said the right to vote is one of the most sacred rights and forcing people to give their Aadhaar details to election authorities goes against the right to privacy.