Election Law (Amendment) Bill, 2021 passed in RS

The Election Law (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was passed by the Rajya Sabha amid Opposition walk out. The Bill earlier was adopted by the lower House on Monday. The act paves way for linking Aadhaar with Voter ID.

New Delhi:Amid Opposition staging a walk out, the Election Law (Amendment) Bill 2021 was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The Bill was opposed by Congress and other opposition parties in the Lok Sabha session earlier. It was, however, passed in the Lok Sabha on Monday despite the opposition. The Bill chiefly proposes to link the voter ID card with the Aadhaar card to prevent duplication and bogus voting.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to the draft of this Bill suggesting electoral reforms. According to the Bill, the election law will be made gender neutral for military voters. Under the provisions of the current electoral law, the wife of a serviceman is eligible to register as a military voter but the husband of a female serviceman is not eligible. The bill proposes to inculcate gender neutrality in this regard.

The Objects and Reasons of the Bill state that electoral reforms are a continuous process, and therefore the Central government is receiving proposals for electoral reforms from time to time from various sectors, including the Election Commission. Based on the proposals of the Election Commission, it is suggested to amend the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Accordingly, the Election Law Amendment Bill 2021 has been proposed.

An insight into the bill's proposals

The Bill proposes the amendment of section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 with a view to link the electoral roll data with the Aadhaar system, in order to control the evils of multiple enrollment of the same person at different locations.

In addition, it also seeks to amend clause (b) of section 14 of the RP Act, 1950 specifying the 1st day of January, 1st day of April, 1st day of July and 1st day of October in any calendar year as qualifying dates for the preparation or revision of electoral rolls.

The Election Commission has been advocating for multiple 'cut off dates' to allow eligible people to register as voters. The Commission had told the government that due to only one 'cut off date' on January 1, many youths are deprived of the exercise of registering in the voter list. With only one 'cut off date', persons who completed 18 years of age on or after January 2 could not register and had to wait for the next year to register. The above amendment is suggested for this particular reason.

Secondly, the Bill proposes a provision to amend Section 20 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, and Section 60 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to replace the word 'wife' with 'husband or wife', in order to make the laws gender-neutral, and get equal voting rights to both men and women in the military families.

It also has some provisions to facilitate better resources for the premises to be used as polling stations, post-poll counting, ballot boxes, voting machines and storage related materials.

Opposition tags it as 'privacy breach'

The Bill has however attracted heavy criticism from the opposition parties claiming that the linkage of voter Id cards with the Aadhaar cards would lead to a privacy breach. The opposition has demanded for the draft to be presented to a Standing Committee as it is an infringement on the fundamental right of privacy as enunciated by the Supreme Court and will lead to mass disenfranchisement, as informed by an opposition leader.