SC to hear plea by Cong leader Randeep Surjewala against Election Law Amendment Act
Linking Aadhaar to Voter card
New Delhi, Jul 24: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Monday a plea by Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala challenging the Election Law Amendment Act that enables linking electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem.
A bench of justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna is likely to take up the petition.
The Congress leader, in his plea, submitted that the linking of the cards infringes upon the fundamental right of privacy of citizens and is unconstitutional and ultra vires the Constitution".
Linking of Aadhaar data with Electronic Electoral Photo Identity Card data will allow the personal and private data of voters to be available to a statutory authority and shall impose a limitation on the voters, i.e., the voters will now have to establish their identity before the Electoral Registration Officer (Respondent No. 2) by furnishing their respective Aadhaar details.
The situation will further be aggravated by the fact that at present there are no laws for protecting the data of citizens, the plea said.
It claimed the amendment may even enable voter profiling as all the demographic information linked to Aadhaar shall be linked with the Voter ID.
This can, in theory, also increase the possibility of disenfranchisement/intimidation based on the identity of voters.
"This may even increase chances of voter surveillance and the commercial exploitation of private sensitive data of voters, it said.
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BJP has history of ‘contradictory alliances’, says BK Hariprasad
Bengaluru: Congress MLC B. K. Hariprasad has launched a sharp attack on the BJP, accusing the party of hypocrisy over its criticism of alliance politics in Tamil Nadu.
In a post on X on Friday, Hariprasad said BJP leader B. L. Santhosh criticising the Congress party’s alliance politics in Tamil Nadu was “not just laughable, but the height of political contradiction.”
He said the Congress has always joined hands with like-minded parties to protect secular and democratic values in the country.
Hariprasad questioned the BJP over several of its past and present alliances across the country. Referring to Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Tripura, Bihar and Maharashtra, he accused the BJP of sharing power with parties it had earlier criticised.
He alleged that the BJP had aligned with separatist and corruption-linked political forces in different states for political gains.
“The BJP, which speaks against alliances today, should first look at its own political history,” he said, adding that the party’s record was full of “contradictions and changing stands.”
Hariprasad also accused the BJP of using central agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Department and CBI as political tools to target opposition leaders, topple governments and influence electoral mandates.
He further claimed that the people of Tamil Nadu had strongly rejected the BJP and its ideology in the recent election.
“Congress forms alliances to protect the Constitution, secularism and national unity, while the BJP enters into alliances only for power,” he said.
