First is the question of the 66.23 million Aadhaar numbers that the poll team has collected. Until 2023. Shared voluntarily by Epic holders, the 12-bit Aadhaar numbers have been targeted at voter ID cards “seed”, but until now, neither database has been linked. It is said that further practice of Aadhaar numbers was suspended in the 2023 court case, preventing planned connections between the two databases. This connection has been under consideration for some time in the existing Rs 66.23 crore, but privacy issues and legal barriers can hinder it when it is being considered. What is imminent is political sensitivity. The ECI has largely reached a consensus that there may be serious political controversy during the election cycle, and unnecessary suspicion will eventually get stuck, or, worse, the plan will be stuck.
Given the subsequent series of high-pressure elections, it is almost impossible to find a political “time of peace” after the legal amendment to achieve Aadhaar’s “Sow” in 2022. There are some trivia questions about the efficacy of connecting half of the database – in fact, will the election list actually be deleted without the entire election list associated with Aadhaar?
Comments are allocated because either way requires further steps – from developing/upgrading the “linking” software to using the software’s manual deletion process. Therefore, the goal of this connection leads us to raise the next major question. How does the entire election volume connect to Aadhaar when this connection is not enforced and is allowed by the ECI in 2023? In the G Niranjan vs Election Commission in India, the polling team submitted to the SC in September 2023, saying that “the submission of Aadhaar numbers is not in accordance with the rules of Rule 26-B (Amendment) of the Elector Registration Rule 2022’. The problem arose from Form 6B of Form 2022 after the amendment of the People’s Act of 1951, which allowed the polling team to collect Aadhaar numbers on a “voluntary” basis. A written petition filed by the SC stated that the 6B vocabulary did not clearly indicate that this was purely a voluntary exercise.
In fact, the ECI promised in court that it was considering issuing “appropriate clarification changes in the form introduced for this purpose”, which SC observed in its order. The polling team has not released the “classified changes” to date, even though it has been learned that the proposal has been made, first with the law amendment and later the rulebook of the Law Department. So, with the senior meetings of the ECI with the Ministry of the Interior, Law and UIDAI, the third key question arises is whether the polling team can collect, sow and connect with the epic collection, sow and connect with the legal amendment authorized to collect, sow and connect with.
This move is destined to launch a major debate about privacy, which may deprive citizens of their rights and their basic right to vote. It will also open up political minefields. After all, SC repeatedly stressed that any Aadhaar link must pass rigorous and critical testing of necessity and “commensurance”, not just for administrative efficiency.
