CURRENT AFFAIRS FOR UPSC IAS

The Rajya Sabha passed the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021 which seeks to enable electoral authorities to mandate linking voter identity cards with Aadhaar.

Key-highlights of the Bill

Mandatory Aadhaar linking (insert sub-section (3) in Section 23 of the RPA Act)

• The Bill proposes to allow electoral registration officers to seek the Aadhaar number of people who want to register themselves as voters "for the purpose of establishing the identity".
• The Bill also allows the electoral registration officers to ask for Aadhaar numbers from "persons already included in the electoral roll for the purposes of authentication of entries in the electoral roll, and to identify registration of the name of the same person in the electoral roll of more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency".
• Towards this end, it seeks to insert sub-section (3) in Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.

Gender-neutral:

• The Bill also seeks to amend Sections 20 and 60 of the Representation of People's Act, which will allow elections to become gender-neutral for service voters.
• The amendment will replace the word "wife"with the word "spouse" making the statutes "gender neutral."