Today in Politics: Kejriwal is back in action, shifts his focus to Punjab | Political Pulse News

Party sources said Kejriwal will be in Amritsar till Monday. On Sunday, Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will pay respects at the Golden Temple, the Durgiana Temple and the Valmiki Tirath Sthal.

This, party sources said, were to mark the completion of three years of the AAP government in Punjab.

IN CONTEXT: The loss in Delhi, which was the centre of the AAP’s politics over the years, came as a major blow to the party. The party is also going through a crisis In Punjab, the only remaining state under the party now.

The AAP has been struggling in Punjab’s local elections in Tarn Taran, Ludhiana, Amritsar, and Phagwara. Even in Sangrur, Mann’s hometown, the AAP was unable to get a decisive mandate in the municipal council elections in December. However, despite these challenges, the AAP had its own mayors in various municipal corporations by securing support from Independents or when councillors from opposite parties switched to the AAP.

With the AAP in Punjab also replicating its welfare politics from Delhi, the party is worried about retaining its base and delivering on its governance promises to retain power.

EC meet on Aadhar number links to voter id

The Election Commission (EC) is holding a meeting with the top officials of the Union Home Ministry, Law Ministry and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) next week to discuss the issue of linking of the Aadhaar numbers with the voter identity cards, EC sources said Saturday.

Following an amendment to the Representation of the People Act, 1951 in 2021 enabling the linking of the Aadhaar numbers with the Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPICs), the EC began collecting the Aadhaar numbers from electors on a voluntary basis in 2022.

However, the EC has not used the Aadhaar numbers in its revisions of the electoral rolls so far. The exercise was meant to aid the Commission in detecting duplicate registration of voters in order to clean up the electoral rolls. The Aadhaar-EPIC linking has not been made mandatory for voters.

The EC, comprising Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, is set to meet Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, Legislative Department Secretary Rajiv Mani and UIDAI CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar on March 18 to discuss the seeding of the Aadhaar numbers in the voter IDs.

IN CONTEXT: The meeting comes against the backdrop of the Opposition INDIA bloc parties making allegations of irregularities in electoral rolls in different parts of the country.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has raked up the issue of electors in West Bengal and other states having the same EPIC numbers. The EPIC row was flagged by TMC chief and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a recent conclave of her party in Kolkata, where she accused the BJP of allegedly manipulating the voter lists in collusion with the EC.

It led the EC to acknowledge that some state Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) had used the wrong alphanumeric series when issuing the EPIC numbers.

The Commission also said that having identical EPIC numbers do not imply fake voters as other details such as demographic information, Assembly constituency and polling booth are different.

The poll body has also announced that it would issue new EPIC numbers to electors with duplicate numbers within three months.

Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi also raised the issue of alleged manipulation of voter lists in the House earlier this week, demanding a discussion over it. “Such questions have been raised by the Opposition in one voice in every state, including Maharashtra,” he said.

— With PTI inputs