'No suspicious voters category under law': EC tells Rajya Sabha on participation in 2024 Lok Sabha election

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The Election Commission informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that there is no category of “suspicious voters” under the Representation of the People (RP) Act, 1951.

The law ministry was replying on behalf of the poll panel on to the question whether any such voters had cast their votes in the last Lok Sabha elections.

The poll body's statement was made to the Rajya Sabha through a written reply by the Minister of State for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal. This came amid the ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar.

The statement came in response to a question from Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman, who had demanded to know if any such voters had participation in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

While responding to another question by Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Kumar Jha, Meghwal also confirmed that the process of linking Aadhaar cards with the Election Photo Identity Cards has not yet started, adding that the poll body had begun collecting Aadhaar details from voters on a voluntary basis starting August 1, 2022 after a 2021 amendment to the Representation of the People Act.

The Election Commission is currently in the process of voter rolls in Bihar after it cited that foreign illegal immigrants had allegedly been included in the rolls and needed to be identified.

Meghwal's statement came months after the Election Commission announced its plans to start the process to link voter ID cards with the Aadhaar database.

Election Commission's decision to hold SIR in Bihar came months after the Trinamool Congress and the Congress alleged that at least 129 voters in Haryana and West Bengal had the same EPIC number - which the poll body had earlier clarified is supposed to be unique for every voter. However, the opposition has alleged that the SIR is just a way to manipulate the voter list in Bihar before the upcoming elections.