The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the Election Commission of India’s response to a petition claiming that it engaged in voter profiling with the help of an undisclosed software to link voter records to Aadhaar, reported Live Law.
“This is an important issue which we have to decide,” a division bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha said. The bench listed the matter for January 25.
The petitioner, a Hyderabad-based engineer named Srinivas Kodali, has claimed in his petition that the Election Commission linked Electors Photo Identity Card, or EPIC, with Aadhaar, and then seeded the EPIC data with the state resident data hub, according to Bar and Bench. Kodali said that the poll panel permitted state governments to access and copy EPIC data.
“ECI has effectively created a surveillance...sensitive information of voters including religion, caste, tribe, ethnicity, language, records of entitlement, income, and medical history is now linked to voter information,” the petition said.
The availability of this data will allow political parties to segregate voters into interest groups and selectively target or ignore them, which would interfere with free and fair elections, Kodali alleged.
“In sum, the Election Commission abdicated its constitutional duty under Article 324 and statutory obligation under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 D to prepare electoral rolls without the aid or assistance from the government or electronic databases under their control,” the plea said, reported Live Law.
Kodali also alleged that the Election Commission deleted 46 lakh entries from the electoral rolls in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to “purify” the list of voters, reported Bar and Bench.
On December 7, 2018 when voting was held in Telangana a controversy arose, with a number of people taking to social media to complain that their names had been deleted from the electoral rolls.
Several names were deleted from the electoral rolls after an exercise to link Aadhaar with voter ID cards, according to The Hindu. The State Election Commission later allowed voters to add their names back in the electoral rolls and provided them new voter cards.
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