55-56 cr voters linked Aadhaar details with electoral rolls: EC officials

Nearly 56 crore of approximately 95 crore registered voters have linked their Aadhaar details with the electoral rolls, an exercise the government and the EC believe would weed out duplicate entries

Nearly 56 crore of the approximately 95 crore registered voters have linked their Aadhaar details with the electoral rolls, an exercise the government and the Election Commission believe would weed out duplicate entries from the voters list.

EC officials said between 55 and 56 crore voters have shared their Aadhaar details with poll authorities for linkage with the electoral roll.

The Representation of the People Act was amended in December last year to pave way for voluntary linkage of Aadhaar and voter list details.

Subsequently, later this year, the Union Law Ministry had issued rules to bring into force the changes carried out in the electoral law.

According to a law ministry notification, using the newly-introduced Form-6B, existing voters may share their Aadhaar number will poll authorities.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (5) of Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (43 of 1950), the Central Government hereby notifies the 1st April, 2023 as the date on or before which every person whose name is included in the electoral roll may intimate his Aadhaar number in accordance with the said section," read the notification.

The new form was introduced with effect from August 1 "for collecting Aadhaar numbers".

In July, the Election Commission had warned of "severe" disciplinary action against electoral registration officers for any leakages of physical forms filled by electors to share their Aadhaar details.