The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday announced that the linking of Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) and Aadhaar will be done as per the provisions of Article 326 of the Constitution, Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1950 and relevant Supreme Court (SC) judgements.
The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar along with Election Commissioners (ECs) Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi with the Union Home Secretary, Secretary Legislative Department, Secretary MeitY and CEO of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and technical experts of the poll panel for discussion on the linking of EPIC and Aadhaar at the Nirvachan Sadan.
The ECI said while, as per the Article 326 of the Constitution of India, voting right can only be given to a citizen of India; an Aadhaar card only establishes the identity of a person.
“Therefore, it was decided that the linking of EPIC with Aadhaar will be done only as per the provisions of Article 326 of the constitution, Section 23(4), 23(5) and 23(6) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and in line with the Supreme Court judgement in WP(civil) No. 177/2023,” the poll panel said in a communiqué.
Accordingly, technical consultations between UIDAI and the technical experts of ECI are to begin soon, it said.
Notably, the meeting came days after the ECI sought suggestions from all national and regional political parties by April 30, in a bid to further strengthen the electoral processes.
It may be mentioned that in the wake of criticism from Opposition parties including Congress over the duplication in EPIC, the ECI had earlier said that this “long pending” issue will be resolved within the next three months.