The central government is planning to hold a meeting with state election commissioners soon to try and persuade them to adopt a common electoral roll for Parliament, Assembly and local body elections, it is learnt.
On a day the Rajya Sabha passed The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which enables the linking of electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem amid opposition protests, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice held a scheduled meeting on the ‘Status of Common Electoral Roll for conducting elections in the country’. The Committee is headed by BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi.
It is learnt that opposition members in the committee – TMC’s Sukhendu Sekhar Ray, Congress’s Deepender Hooda and DMK’s P Wilson – opposed the proposal, arguing that it was an encroachment into the rights of the states. Some of the opposition members, it is learnt, argued that the Centre has no powers or authority to tinker with the powers given to the State Election Commission under the Constitution.