Should voter IDs be linked with Aadhaar? | Explained

The story so far: The Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party have accused each other of manipulating electoral rolls before the Delhi Assembly elections. Further, the amendment also specifies that no application for inclusion of name in the electoral roll shall be denied and no entries shall be deleted due to the inability of an individual to furnish or intimate the Aadhaar number due to ‘sufficient cause.’ Such individuals may furnish alternate documents like PAN card, Driving Licence, Passport, Bank passbook etc. Firstly, the errors in the Aadhaar database, however miniscule, may result in wrongful rejection or deletion of entries from the electoral roll. Finally, while the linkage is to happen at the back end and a mere mention of the Aadhaar number on the EPIC/electoral roll may not by itself be a violation of right to privacy, it may still result in misuse as the electoral rolls are widely circulated amongst political parties. There must be wide publicity about the benefits of linking EPIC and Aadhaar to clean up the electoral roll of duplicate entries, which in turn strengthens the electoral process.