‘1st strip people of their political voice, then welfare entitlements’

New Delhi: Reacting to the Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh’s proposal of identifying welfare beneficiaries through biometric authentication and Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) numbers instead of Aadhaar, Congress leader Pawan Khera slammed that the proposal was part of a larger plan to exclude people from both the electoral and welfare systems, Maktoob reports.

"First, strip people of their political voice by deleting them from the rolls. Then strip them of their welfare entitlements for not being on them," Khera wrote in a post on X on Thursday.

Khera warned that replacing Aadhaar with voter ID as the basis for welfare payments could leave millions without essential benefits, particularly those whose names had been deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Rajiv Ranjan Singh made the announcement at the National Workshop on People's Plan Campaign 2026-27 on October 30. However, he did not specify the schemes covered or the implementation timeline.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also opposed the proposal, warning that the move could deepen the exclusion of economically vulnerable communities. It pointed to authentication failures among elderly agricultural workers and manual labourers, whose iris scans and worn fingerprints often go unrecognised by biometric systems. Households without smartphones could also face difficulties with electronic KYC requirements.

The CPI(M) alleged that more than 13.4 crore voters had been excluded through the SIR exercise and warned that linking welfare entitlements to EPIC numbers would compound the damage.

In West Bengal, the BJP government had indicated in May that people whose names were deleted from the electoral rolls and whose appeals remained pending could be denied welfare benefits. Around 27.16 lakh voters were removed during the adjudication phase, triggering allegations of wrongful deletion.