Including Aadhaar as 12th document for voter verification is significant

POLITY – ELECTIONS

10 SEPTEMBER 2025

• The Supreme Court intervened ordering the Election Commission of India (ECI) to include the Aadhaar card as one of the 12 valid documents for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Bihar’s electoral rolls.
• It is a resounding victory for the fundamental right to vote, reaffirming the principle that procedural rigidity must not disenfranchise lakhs of eligible citizens.
• The ECI adopted questionable reasoning, insisting that Aadhaar was merely proof of residency, not citizenship, and was, therefore, inadmissible.
• The Court rightly dismantled this argument by pointing out the glaring inconsistency: if nine of the other 11 documents, save for a passport or birth certificate, do not conclusively prove citizenship, why single out Aadhaar for exclusion?
• Empirical evidence demonstrates that excluding Aadhaar, which is held by nearly 90% of Bihar’s population, in favour of documents such as passports (held by a mere 2%) and others, would have created insurmountable barriers for a vast number of genuine voters, particularly among the poor and the marginalised.
• The ECI’s rushed SIR exercise had already resulted in the exclusion of over 65 lakh electors from the draft roll.
• A statistical analysis by The Hindu of this exclusion reveals several anomalies — disproportionate numbers of women removed, statistically improbable death rates in certain areas, and questionable “permanent shifts” of residents, especially migrant workers and married women.

The current Bihar Legislative Assembly’s term ends on 22 November 2025.