'Move to force voters to link Aadhaar with Epic cards violates Right to Privacy'

kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national spokesperson, Saket Gokhale, has written to the Chief Election Commission of India (ECI), urging him not to link Aadhaar cards with EPIC cards.

In his letter, Gokhale mentioned that the ECI's decision to 'force people' to link Aadhaar with EPIC cards is in complete violation of Right to Privacy under Article 21 as recognised by Supreme Court of

India in its judgement in the Puttaswamy Vs Union of India case in 2017. He, however, sought clarification from CEO on this regard and urged ECI to issue guidelines to all electoral officers, including BLOs asking them to cease and desist from coercing or forcing people to link their voter ID EPIC cards with Aadhaar and to ask them to refrain from falsely telling

voters that this process is mandatory. Several instances have been reported over a few months about booth-level officials calling up people across the country and warning them that their voter ID EPIC cards would be cancelled and their names would be deleted from the electoral roll if they don't link their Aadhaar numbers.

According to Gokhale, the Election Laws (Amendment Bill) 2021, which allows the linking of electoral data with the Aadhaar number, was passed in December 2021.

Subsequent to the passing of the bill, Union law minister Kiren Rijiju informed Parliament that linking of voter ID EPIC cards with Aadhaar was voluntary and not mandatory.