Consultations on Aadhaar-EPIC seeding to begin soon

New Delhi:The Election Commission of India will soon begin technical consultations with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) experts on Aadhaar-voter card seeding in a bid to resolve the issue of duplicate EPIC numbers. The ECI said this would be done as per provisions of existing laws and the Supreme Court’s directions.

It was not clear if Aadhaar-EPIC seeding will be done only for contentious and duplicate voter cards or for all. Sources in ECI said this was the first meeting and the modalities on how to go about cleaning the duplicate voter numbers, as per provisions of existing laws, will be worked on in the coming days.

It is learnt that the ECI will use its upgraded software to detect all duplicate numbers and ghost voters. The software will be available to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) in states and Union Territories to detect multiple names attached to a particular EPIC number, or the same person having multiple voter cards. The ECI may also use Artificial Intelligence, biometrics and face detection technology in future to weed out fraudulent activities.

Monday’s meeting was presided by Chief Election Commissioner of India (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and was attended by ECs Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Dr. Vivek Joshi, Union home secretary, secretary legislative department, secretary MeitY and CEO, UIDAI and technical experts. The CEC had said the issue of duplicate EPIC will be resolved within three months.

“As per the Article 326 of the Constitution of India, voting rights can only be given to a citizen of India; an Aadhaar card only establishes the identity of a person. Therefore, it was decided that the linking of EPIC with Aadhaar will be done only as per the provisions of Article 326 of the constitution, Section 23(4), 23(5) and 23(6) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and in line with the Supreme Court judgement in WP (civil) No. 177/2023. Accordingly, technical consultations between UIDAI and the technical experts of ECI are to begin soon,” the ECI said in a statement.

Aadhaar was made mandatory while filling Form 6 for voter registration but was withdrawn following a Writ Petition in Supreme Court challenging this and the ECI gave an undertaking to the top court saying it will issue “appropriate clarificatory changes” in Forms 6 and 6B (for Registration in E-Roll) to remove this provision.