In the future, the country could have an integrated data network containing all forms of details on the Aadhaar card, former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) S.Y. Quraishi said here on Monday.
Answering questions along with Lok Satta Party leader Jayaprakash Narayan at a session at the Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) titled Indian Elections: A Conversation , Mr. Quraishi said a difference in the number of voters was once found during a pre-election check when he was CEC.
“We found that 12 per cent of voters were missing. However, now enrolment is improving and so are the elections,” Mr. Quraishi mentioned. When asked how difficult it was to conduct elections in Maoist areas, he replied that the Election Commission (EC) negotiates with the Centre for troops to maintain law and order in those areas.
“Troops which are brought in have to be present at the border areas also. Though the elections have been bloodless in recent years, we can’t be 100 per cent sure that there won’t be any incident in such places,” Mr. Quraishi said.
‘Malpractice endemic’
Mr. Narayan said vote-buying, illegitimate expenditure and division among people are endemic problems during Indian elections. “There won’t be much change in the future also. That’s the truth. The problem is a result of delegitimising politics with those problems,” he opined.
Other events on Monday included a talk titled Caste and Gender involving writer Meena Kandasamy and Nadi Palshikar, and Past and Fiction: A Conversation by former MP Shaheed Siddiqui and Suresh Kohli.
S.Y. Quraishi says the names of 12 p.c. of the country’s voters had gone ‘missing’ during his stint
