ECI to begin linking of Aadhaar data with EPIC

The Election Commission of India on Tuesday said that it will set the ball rolling on the process of linking the Aadhaar data of electors with the Elector Photo Identification Card database, in an apparent bid to weed out the problem of duplicate EPICs. “.It was decided that the linking of EPIC with Aadhaar will be done only as per the provisions of Article 326 of the Constitution, Representation of People’s Act and in line with Supreme Court judgement of 2023…Accordingly, technical consultations between UIDAI and the technical experts of ECI are to begin soon,” said ECI in its release. The high-level meeting came days after ECI had sent a note containing Gyanesh Kumar’s speech to all Chief Electoral Officers where he said that “all attempts should be made to link Aadhaar ”. In September 2023, the Supreme Court had disposed of a writ petition seeking amendments to forms 6 and 6B after ECI submitted to the court that since submitting Aadhaar number was not mandatory under the Registration of Electors Rules, 2022, the poll body was “looking into issuing appropriate clarificatory changes in the forms introduced for the purpose”. In September 2023, the poll panel had told the Supreme Court that 662.3 million Aadhaar numbers had been uploaded “in the process of finalising electoral rolls”.