New Delhi: The Electoral Reform Act has been passed by the Rajya Sabha amid heavy uproar in the Parliament. During this, the opposition parties staged a walkout from the house. It may be noted that this bill was passed by the Lok Sabha only yesterday.
The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 passed in Rajya Sabha
Yesterday, the Bill was passed in Lok Sabha. pic.twitter.com/ctS2onpIdC
– ANI (@ANI) December 21, 2021
Now protesting the support done in the committee
Like Lok Sabha, many parties including Congress, Trinamool Congress party opposed it in Rajya Sabha too. Responding to which BJP MP Sushil Modi said, “Those who demanded linking of Aadhar card with voter ID card and voter list, they are opposing the bill with this provision by coming before the chair today.
He said Congress’s Deepender Hooda and Vivek Tankha, Trinamool Congress’s Sukhendu Shekhar Rai were members of the standing committee that recommended linking of Aadhaar card with voter list. The BJP member questioned when the members of the opposition parties did not oppose this provision in the standing committee, then why are they opposing it at this time?
Sushil Modi alleged that Congress and Trinamool Congress are opposing the bill as they have put names of lakhs of fake people in the voter list. He claimed that the Trinamool Congress has won the election in West Bengal by putting fake names in the voter list.
did not include our disagreement
Trinamool MP Shubhendu Shekhar Rai raised the issue of arrangement and said that BJP member taking his name said that he was a member of the committee and after supporting there is opposing the bill in the House. Rai claimed that he had given dissenting remarks in the committee’s report but it was not included.
What’s in the bill?
According to the bill, the election law would be made gender neutral for military voters. Under the provisions of the current electoral law, the wife of a serviceman is eligible to register as a military voter but the husband of a female serviceman is not eligible. The situation will change once the proposed bill becomes law.
The Objectives and Reasons of the Bill states that electoral reforms are a continuous process. The Central Government is receiving proposals for electoral reforms from time to time from various sectors, including the Election Commission of India. Based on the proposals of the Election Commission, it is proposed to amend the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Accordingly, the Election Law Amendment Bill 2021 has been proposed. It has been proposed to amend section 23 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 with a view to linking the electoral roll data with the Aadhaar system to check the evil of multiple enrollment of the same person at different locations. .
The Election Commission has been advocating for several ‘cut off dates’ to allow eligible people to register as voters. The commission had told the government that due to the ‘cut off date’ of January 1, many youths are deprived of the exercise of voter list. With only one ‘cut-off date’, persons who completed 18 years of age on or after January 2 were not able to register and had to wait for the next year to register.
According to the document of the Bill, a provision has been made to amend Section 20 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and Section 60 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to replace the word ‘wife’ with ‘husband’ to make the laws gender neutral.