Dr Satya Dev Gupta
Towards the course of action for the election reforms, where the Government of India and political parties along with the election commission have been trying to improve the RPA (People Representation Act) since democratic set up was being introduced in India, and the Indian Constitution enforced. To conduct the elections first set of rules were introduced in 1951 for Parliament and State Assemblies. A lot of changes have been made over the years including political parties funding, company laws for donations, income tax, donations, and intervention by the Supreme Court; and furthermore, many other laws were improvised i.e., Anti Defection Law. (ADR) Association of Democratic Reforms), Central Information Commission, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Election Commission of India (ECI), Nota, Financial Bills, Electoral Bonds, Civil Rights Societies.
CONTENTS OF BILL
On 20th December 1921, a bill pertaining to the amendment of RP Act 1950-51 (Representation of people Act), which provides rules for execution of elections i.e., proceedings, its conduct, offences and disputes related to the election, in the form of electoral reforms was presented on Monday, 20th December, piloted by Law Minister Kiran Rijiju, and passed in Lok Sabha after a brief discussion and amid with the demand by the opposition to refer it to a standing committee. The next day the bill was tabled in Rajya Sabha amid a walkout by the opposition. It is also added with the 1950 Act with an amendment that provides allocation of seats and delimitation of constituencies for elections, qualifications of voters and preparation of electoral rolls having a significant note i.e., “January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 in a calendar year” will be the qualifying dates in relation to the preparation or revision of the rolls as previously it was only the 1st January of the Calendar year. The amendment to Section 20 of the RP Act, 1950, and Section 60 of the RP Act, 1951, will allow the elections to become gender-neutral for service voters.
GOVERNMENT JUSTIFICATION
According to the Government resources the introduction of this bill shall bring a revolution in the electoral reforms and shall be a milestone in the history of rectification of election rules. The matter concerning linking the ADHAAR with Voter ID has been discussed for a long time and shared a 2018 statement of the Election Commission following a meeting of all recognized national and regional parties on various electoral reforms. All the political parties urged the commission to link Aadhaar numbers with electors’ detail for better electoral roll management,” the EC had said.
* Registration in the electoral roll is done and based on an application by a person who is eligible to be registered as a voter and this bill has a provision whereby the new applicant may voluntarily provide the Aadhaar number along with the application for the purpose of identity, Government sources said.
* No application will be rejected on the grounds that Aadhaar number has not been provided, the sources added.
* Aadhaar linking with electoral roll will solve “one of the major problems” in electoral database management which has multiple enrolments of the same person at different places, they said. This may be due to the frequent shifting of residence by electors and getting enrolled in the new place without deleting the previous enrolment, the sources noted.
* Thus, the possibility of electors whose names appear in more than one electoral roll or at times more than once in the same electoral roll can be removed, they said. Once the Aadhaar linkage is achieved, the electoral roll data system will instantly alert the existence of previous registration(s) whenever a person applies for new registration, the sources said”.
“This will help in “cleaning” the electoral roll to a great extent and facilitate voter registration in the location at which they are ‘ordinarily resident’, the sources added”.
“Besides linking electoral roll to Aadhaar, the Bill also seeks to make the statutes gender-neutral by substituting the term ‘wife’ with ‘spouse’ to allow husbands of service voters to cast their vote from the place where their wives are posted. It also seeks to provide four qualifying dates — January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 — in a year for registration of voters, instead of a single qualifying date — January 1”.
FUTURE COURSE
Agreeing to the issue of linking Aadhaar to Voter ID, for the electoral reforms now the opposition parties are raising hue and cry against the bill. Opposition leader of Congress Adhir Ranjan Chowdury calls it an infringement for the security of privacy as enunciated by the Supreme Court, provided in fundamental rights of the citizens. Another member Manish Tiwari pleaded for the rejection of the bill with a plea that this amendment is out of legislative competency as such presented in the house. Whatsoever may be the arguments, this law shall bring a marvelous change in the electoral reforms. As far as the privacy of voters is concerned the argument given by the opposition holds no water, as an individual have to submit his or her confidential, legitimate, crucial and critical data to different government and private agencies.
In many places, particularly the capital city of New Delhi numerous persons are enrolled with, duplicate, unknown and dubious identities. An illegal migrant from Bangladesh, Myanmar (Rohingya), Pakistan and other countries, posing threats to national security are lurking to destabilize the state. Some political parties always have their eyes on these nasty elements to enroll them as their voters. Bordering states like Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujrat are the easiest targets to fulfil their malicious designs. Pre and post scenario of West Bengal recent election atrocities on a particular community is an eye-opener and lesson that elucidate the significance of knowing the full information of the citizens and voters. Jammu province of Jammu and Kashmir state too was targeted for similar demographic invasion by a schematic nefarious designed strategy to implant Bangladeshi, Rohingya and other illegal foreign-based elements by the initiative of some political and communal groups. The newly passed electoral reform law for PRA will become a boon for ameliorating the corrupt practices in the elections and pave the ways for implementing CAA (Citizens Amendment Act) and NRC (National Resident Certificate) easily.
(The author is Ex-Head of Intensive Care Unit & Department of Anesthesia Government Medical College Jammu.)
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