Aadhaar opponents at Centre, proponents in states
On January 17, Congress president Rahul Gandhi posted a Twitter message on what made the United Progressive Alliance’s concept of Aadhaar different from the National Democratic Alliance’s. “UPA’s Aadhaar = A voluntary instrument to empower citizens. NDA’s Aadhaar = A compulsory weapon to disempower citizens,” he wrote.
A little more than a month later, on February 21, the Cabinet of the Congress-led government in Karnataka approved the Karnataka Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2018, which will make 12-digit unique identification number compulsory for its residents to avail of state subsidies, benefits and services.
The timing and the nature of the bill appears to be in conflict with the Congress’s official stance that forcing Aadhaar on people is a recipe for disaster.
The bill invited flak on social media. Priyanka Chaturvedi, the party’s national spokesperson, played down its import, “The bill has not yet become an Act, and any legislation from Karnataka will take into account the INC president’s and public view on the issue,” she said.
Karnataka is not the sole example.
Kerala’s Left Democratic Front (LDF) government led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) made Aadhaar mandatory for the state’s Service and Payroll Administrative Repository in December 2017. It is also working on a programme in which health records will be indexed to Aadhaar number.
The central leadership of the CPM is opposing Aadhaar. CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury is consistently tweeting on the perils of Aadhaar linking. Asked about the apparent contradiction, Brinda Karat, a Politburo member of the CPM, said, “State governments are being forced by the Centre to make Aadhaar mandatory. We are supporting the petition against Aadhaar in the Supreme Court. Where is the question of the LDF government supporting it?”
Last week, the Aam Aadmi Party that governs Delhi decided to put on hold a decision to allow the distribution of subsidised foodgrain through Aadhaar. But it has continued with the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with the Ladli Scheme, an initiative of the previous Congress government aimed at promoting girl child empowerment through financial incentives.
However, a big exception to this dichotomy is Trinamool Congress and its government in West Bengal where Aadhaar has not been made mandatory for any of the state government schemes.
The BJP is only too pleased by the inconsistency of Opposition parties and the state governments they control. BJP’s national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao says that the opposition to Aadhaar is political in nature. “If the Congress was not convinced of the advantages of Aadhaar, why did they ever begin it in the first place? Why was this investment and infrastructure put up? This just shows their hypocrisy.”
But what about the BJP’s own shifting stance on Aadhaar, which it once opposed? Rao claims the BJP could have said that Aadhaar is a legacy of the Congress-led UPA and discontinued it. “But we did not want to make a political issue out of it. We had a positive approach and are making sure that Aadhaar is used to arrest leakages (in government welfare programmes).”
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