Jharkhand: Around 68% of 2.45 crore voters gets their cards linked with Aadhar

RANCHi: Around 68% of the 2.45 crore registered voters in Jharkhand have got their cards seeded with Aadhar, even as the state has recorded a 2.7 per cent hike in the electorate size in the past one year, officials said on Thursday.

“Of the total registered voters, 1,66,29226 have provided their Aadhar numbers which is 67.79 per cent of the total voters. We are making effort to get the rest linked with Aadhar. There might be a reluctance on part of the voters in providing their Aadhar numbers due to various reasons. But we want to assure them that seeding Aadhar with voter ID is completely safe,” said K Ravi Kumar, chief electoral officer, Jharkhand.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) had launched the programme to collect the Aadhaar number of electors from August 1, 2022, in all states and union territories. However, the issue has been opposed by various sections, with few moving the Supreme Court against the decision.

While the Apex court is hearing a bunch of petitions challenging the Centre’s move, Union law minister Kiren Rijiju had informed the Lok Sabha in December last year that those who haven’t linked their voter IDs with Aadhar will not be knocked off the electoral lists. The minister said the process of linking the Aadhar with the voter ID is voluntary.

Meanwhile, the election body on Thursday published the revised voter list of the state, which witnessed a hike of 2.7 per cent in the electorate size. Against the estimated population of 4,14,71111, the state has a voter base of 2,45,29841.

Across different categories, the biggest jump has been witnessed in the 18-19 age group which witnessed a growth of 156% taking the total number of voters in the category to 4,33774, officials said. The state has 368 voters under the third gender category, up from 286 in 2021.