Suraksha.P,TNN | Oct 3, 2015, 07.40 PM IST
NEW DELHI: With the recent Supreme Court ruling that no use of Aadhaar cards or its information shall be permitted for anything other than in public distribution system in ration shops and for availing LPG cylinders, the Delhi state election commission's online voting experiment for 2017 Municipal elections has been put on hold.
"The Unique Identification Number or the Aadhaar card will not be used for any purpose other than the PDS scheme and in particular for the purpose of distribution of foodgrains and cooking fuel, such as kerosene. The Aadhaar card may also be used for the purpose of the LPG distribution scheme," the order stated.
The municipal corporations of Delhi and the state election commission had been mulling over an online voting experiment for a long time now. In Gujarat, after voting in local body elections was made mandatory, the Gujarat election commission decided to implement online voting too. The civic polls that are due to be held in October this year will see corporations in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar offer the option of online voting. For this, voters had to register online on the Gujarat election commission website, after which physical verification by local officials followed. Officials noted biometric details and verified other ID proofs, including the hardware configuration of the computer that the voter proposes to use for voting. At the time of voting, a one-time password will be sent to the voter's mobile phone after which he can cast his vote.
Delhi state election commissioner Rakesh Mehta said, "Gujarat has done it. The only issue is they employed physical verification. We have to devise alternative mechanisms for verification now that we can't use Aadhaar. For now, we have put it on hold." He added that since urban areas of Delhi have 100% internet penetration, this shouldn't be a problem. He also said that the corporations do not have the manpower to undertake physical verification. Issues of secrecy of ballot and forcible voting also have to be factored in, he said.
"We have conducted mock elections in RWAs to see if it goes down well with citizens," Mehta added. The State EC has given an estimate of Rs 21 crore to the Delhi government for holding municipal bypolls in 13 wards. The elections for MCD's 272 wards are due in 2017.