We are a country of Big Data. An estimated 99% of adults have an Aadhaar card, which means 138 crores of people (1380 million) have a government-provided identity card. In addition, the country has 117 crore individuals who use mobile phones – all connected to the Aadhaar card for verification. It has 2.5 billion bank accounts, again all connected to Aadhaar cards as an identity. That’s not all. The country has around 10 crore passport holders. Plus, there are 80 crore PAN cards, again linked with Aadhaar cards for identification purposes. A consolidated number of driving licenses across the country, issued by various state governments, is another big data that is also based on the Aadhaar identity of the recipient. The ongoing census of India will again lead to another huge figure about the number of citizens. And, all of such data resides with the government – making it the largest depository of data on Indian citizens.

Out of an estimated Indian population of 1.46 billion, about 1 billion would be aged above 18 years and are thus, eligible to vote. Curiously, the Election Commission of India (EC) has listed only 96.88 crores (968.8 million) people in its all-India voters list as eligible to participate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, the Commission keeps ordering special intensive revision of the voters list – not only discarding all other identities of citizens but also declaring that its diktats alone is the law, though estimates say 65 crores of 96 crore in the voters list have an Aadhaar verification.. The pugnacious attitude of the Election Commission has raised many doubts about not just the credibility of its activities, but the veracity of the very data on which it is mandated to conduct free and fair elections to Parliament and State legislatures.

Across democracies of the world, a voters’ list is a prime data, which is updated on an annual basis through various registrations. Both the US and the UK follow this procedure. However, India, which claims to be the largest of democracies and also an info-tech super power, is erratic on this issue. From time to time, it sends government servants to voter households to verify whether they are Indian citizens and are entitled to vote or not. Article 324 of the Constitution of India as well as the Representation of the People Act, 1950, mandates the EC for the preparation and maintenance of electoral rolls for each........

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