Aadhaar cannot alone be used for voter enrolment, says BJP

The BJP dismissed Opposition claims that Aadhaar alone can secure voting rights, stressing the Supreme Court never endorsed it as proof of citizenship. Amit Malviya said Aadhaar is only identity and residence proof, and voter rolls will exclude fake and foreign entries

New Delhi: The BJP on Sunday accused the Opposition of indulging in propaganda after the Supreme Court said that voters excluded during the ongoing SIR exercise in Bihar can submit Aadhaar along with other documents, asserting that the apex court did not say Aadhaar alone can be a valid document to get voting rights.

Aadhaar is only proof of identity and residence and it does not establish citizenship, BJP’s IT department head Amit Malviya said, adding that nowhere in the judgment did the Supreme Court even suggest that it should be used as a valid document for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

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The Opposition is spreading propaganda over the issue, he said. The Representation of the People Act states that a person will be disqualified from registration in electoral roll if he is not a citizen of India, declared by a competent court to be of unsound mind or is disqualified under law relating to corrupt practices or offences in elections, Malviya said.

The Aadhaar Act, he added, says it is only proof of identity and residence, and does not establish citizenship. “Asking the Election Commission to include Aadhaar as a document for automatic voter enrolment would render Section 16 of the RP Act and the Aadhaar Act meaningless. In fact, this very bench, on August 12, held that Aadhaar is not a legal document to prove citizenship,” Malviya said.

Attributing to the Supreme Court what it has not said is contempt of court, he said in a swipe at the opposition parties. “The truth is simple: SIR is intact, Aadhaar alone cannot get you enrolled, dead, fake, Bangladeshi and Rohingya names will be removed and only Indian citizens will elect the next government – not foreigners,” he said.

Malviya also claimed that 65 lakh names removed from the draft voter roll in Bihar included fake, dead, and Bangladeshi and Rohingya names.

While the Supreme Court asked the list of deleted names to be published so that the affected persons can reapply, Malviya said only 84,305 objections have been filed so far, which is barely 1.3 per cent of the total deleted names. It is well below the standard margin of error, he said. “Clearly, the ‘vote chori’ cry is manufactured,” the BJP leader added.