Linking Aadhaar with Voter IDs without cleaning the bogus ones
RN Bhaskar
Image generated by https://deepai.org/
On March 15, 2025, media headlines talked about the Election Commission planning to meet the law and home ministries to work out ways to link the Aadhaar cards with the Voter ID card.
Promptly, EAS Sarma, former secretary to the government, wrote a letter (https://asiaconverge.com/2025/03/eas-sarma-restoring-the-credibility-of-the-election-commission/). It was addressed to Gyanesh Kumar, Chief Election Commissioner, Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Election Commissioner and Dr Vivek Joshi, Election Commissioner. None of them has bothered to explain the circumstances that warranted the need for this linking of cards.
In his letter, Sarma highlights the several communications he has sent to their office, and for which a response is still pending. But he also tells them “There have been concerns expressed by several civil society bodies and political parties on possible manipulation of the Electoral Rolls (https://youtu.be/Sa1FxRDXA8U), which raise questions of the Commission’s role in addressing such issues. I hope that you will verify, though belatedly, the factual information provided in the Youtube link to arrive at the truth.”
Sarma also points out that “In this connection, I wish to point out that there is a huge number of ghost-Aadhar-cards floating around and one has to be wary about the reliability of linking Aadhar identity to voter ID cards.”
Fait Accompli
On 18 March, without waiting, or bothering to reply to the requests of Sarma and other dignitaries, came the announcement that the decision to link Aadhaar and Voter ID card databases had already been taken.
This was a baffling move, to say the least. This is because, by the government’s own statements before the Lok Sabha, there are at least nine states with more Aadhar cards than the populations in these states
The incompatibility of ghost voters and democracy
On March 21, 2023, I wrote an article (https://asiaconverge.com/2023/04/election-peril-aadhaar-and-the-missing-census/) which spoke of Election (2024) peril and the missing Census. In that article, after sifting through various statements made by the government before the Lok Sabha, I pointed out how at least nine states had more Aadhaar cards than the total populations of such states. The states that were the most worrisome were the Hindi Belt states, which already enjoy a numerical edge over southern states.
I pointed out then that the only way to clean up the Aadhaar database, was by holding the Census promptly. For several reasons — that do not sound plausible — the government was not willing to hold the Census before 2026. It probably wanted to time the Census just before the delimitation exercise which could actually create an irreparable rift between Northern and Southern states (Free sub scription — https://open.substack.com/pub/bhaskarr/p/the-battle-for-constitutional-voice?r=ni0hb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true). It was titled “The battle for constitutional voice and democracy.”
The government paid no heed to these letters and decided to go ahead and hold the 2024 elections. If the election commission had wanted, it could have easily insisted that there should be no elections till the Census had been completed.
Sarma, in a letter to the home secretary AK Bhalla (https://asiaconverge.com/2023/05/eas-sarma-asks-home-ministry-not-to-delay-the-census/), pointed out “The first Census in India was conducted as early as in 1881 and it was repeated at the beginning of every succeeding decade without a single instance of interruption, till the present government chose to defer the 2021 Census, presumably in the name of the two difficult Covid spurts during 2020 and 2021.” He urged the government not to hold elections till the Census compilation had been completed.
If the huge number of Aadhaar cards was one problem, ghosts in the name of voters who were dead posed another major headache (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/ghosts-at-the-voting-booth?sd=pf).
Missing dead
The first is the problem with the general administration. Even after over 75 years since independence, even after tom-tomming to the world that India is the greatest, this country has not yet learnt how to count its dead.
The chart above tells you how many deaths go unregistered, and are merely presumed dead. Then comes a category of people who are known to have died but whose deaths have not been medically certified. The first category is definitely worrying, because their Aadhar Cards and even Voter ID cards are still floating around, ready to be misused.
What is worse, as media reports have pointed out, “Currently, there is no provision to deactivate or cancel the Aadhaar card of a deceased individual. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has not integrated its system with state death registries, and Aadhaar is not mandatory for registering deaths (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-tips/what-happens-to-aadhaar-card-pan-voter-id-and-passport-after-a-family-members-death/articleshow/115661376.cms).
Concealing the dead
If the above limitation is not already a headache, there is another factor that could become a migraine. Governments like to conceal the number of dead, especially if it points to administrative lapses or dereliction.
This was much in evidence during Covid, when survey after survey showed that at least 20% more people had died that the figures put up by the government.
In states like Uttar Pradesh, media houses were victimised if they went around publishing the lists of the dead, after getting the data confirmed by their ground reporters (https://caravanmagazine.in/media/government-punishment-dainik-bhaskar-bravery). The numbers for Uttar Pradesh thus remain uncompiled to date.
Census desperately needed
The database of the Aadhaar cards issued has thus been corrupted because of four factors:
- More Aadhaar cards than populations in several states
- The absence of data on all deaths
- The absence of data on Covid deaths
- The inability on the part of the UIDAI (https://uidai.gov.in/) which is in charge of the issue of Aadhaar cards to even cancel the cards of the dead
The only way to clean up this mess is through a Census.
Sadly, despite several reminders and requests, neither the government, nor the Election Commission has bothered to insist on the Census being compiled and the data being published. The Election Commission has the powers to do this because it is a constitutional authority. It could have ordered the deferment of the 2024 elections till the Aadhaar and Voter databases had been cleaned up.
No such luck. One does not know what factors prevented the Commission from carrying out its duties.
Coup de grâce
The final blow has come when the election commission allowed the corrupt and compromised Aadhaar databases to be linked to the Voter ID cards. This means that you will now have applications for even more Voter ID cards.
This comes on the heels of earlier government orders to ensure that every Aadhaar card was linked to a bank account and if none existed, a new bank account should be created for every card holder (https://indianexpress.com/article/business/banking-and-finance/fm-sitharaman-sets-out-bank-account-aadhaar-linking-deadline-7046831/).
PAN Cards as well
This was then followed up with a directive that all bank account holders should be given PAN cards (https://asiaconverge.com/2021/02/budget-2021-hurts-both-banking-and-atma-nirbhar-bharat/). As we pointed out in February 2021, “Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman instructed bank managers in November 2020 (http://www.asiaconverge.com/2020/11/pushinng-the-banking-sector-towards-money-laundering/) to ensure that Aadhaar cards and PAN Cards were linked to each and every account before 31 December, or latest by March 31, 2021.”
“She pointed out to them that an enabling provision (http://www.asiaconverge.com/2020/11/aadhaar-pan-combined-through-article-139aa-threaten-banking-financial-integrity/) had already been made in the Finance Bill of 2017, through Article 139AA in the Income Tax Act allowing holders of Aadhaar cards to be issued PAN cards as well (https://incometaxindia.gov.in/Acts/Finance%20Acts/2017/102120000000064612.htm).”
The result was that even PAN card issuances soared.
It is the turn of Voter ID cards now
So, we now have inflated numbers of
- Aadhaar cards
- Bank accounts
- PAN cards
And now we will have a surge in Voter ID cards as well.
Since elections are the bedrock of a democracy, it also means that the very foundations of democracy are under attack.
The opposition has raised a hue and cry. If this matter goes to the Supreme Court, it could lead to a constitutional crisis because the very fundamentals of the Constitution are being corroded.
Linked to this are other methods the government has used to discriminate between Southern and Northern states. The most obvious of them are financial doles which have helped the Bimaru states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh) to climb to become the top 10 GDP states, even though are reckoned to be among the poorest. What is actually astonishing is the rise of Uttar Pradesh to emerge as the top tax paying state (free subscription — https://bhaskarr.substack.com/p/tilting-the-scales-to-suit-north).
Finally, there is the way the government changed population cutoff year from 1971 to 2026 (or whenever the Census is held). That would give North Indian States more benefits both in the delimitation exercise that is to take place, and in financial allocations as well (https://asiaconverge.com/2020/09/india-plundered-again-by-tweaking-rules-against-prosperous-states-and-encouraging-profloigacy-irresponsibility/).
None of these augurs well for India. All the factors described above could accelerate the splintering of India. They could retard its growth to levels that are lower than the ones that are worrying economists.
One hopes better sense prevails.
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Do watch my latest podcast on the big question – Is India being blackmailed? It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/GJpKwcDvw54
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Do also watch our daily morning “News Behind the News” We completed our 15th episode yesterday, 21 March 2025. Do tune in at 8:15 every weekday morning – Monday to Friday. Yesterday’s news can be found at https://www.youtube.com/live/3uO61Xx7BuM?si=HpCp3FPmDIDJFWpq
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