There are more than 54 crore voters out of a total of nearly 95 crore who have opted to link their Aadhaar details with the electoral rolls, an effort aimed at eliminating duplicate entries from the electoral rolls.
Parliament was informed on Thursday by Law Minister Kiren Rijiju that according to information provided by the EC, 54,32,84,760 Form 6Bs had been submitted as of December 12.
In the newly-introduced Form 6B, the Election Commission will be able to receive Aadhaar numbers from existing voters.
Rijiju responded to a question in the Rajya Sabha by stating, “The process of linking Aadhaar with the Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) has begun, and the concerned electors will be notified once they have obtained the authentication result from the Unique Identification Authority of India.”
The Representation of the People Act was amended in December last year to make it possible to link Aadhaar with voter lists voluntarily.
The Union law ministry issued a series of rules earlier this year to bring into effect the changes made to the electoral law.
As a result of the powers conferred on the central government by section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (43 of 1950), the central government has announced that on or before the 1st April, 2023, every person whose name appears on the electoral roll is required to inform the government of his Aadhaar number as defined by this section,” according to a notification issued by the law ministry a few months ago.
New forms were introduced effective August 1 “for the collection of Aadhaar numbers”.
EC had issued a warning in July that disciplinary action would be taken against electoral registration officers in case the physical forms filled out by voters to share their Aadhaar numbers were leaked.