Picture used for representational purpose only

PUNE: The Chief Electoral Office has delinked Aadhaar data of nearly 3 lakh voters across the state whose names were collected in 2015.

Election officials said only the Aadhaar data of the voters were deleted and not their names in accordance with the Election Commission of India ’s (EC) order to the state government.

The officials added that with the enrolment drive continuing, the voters could check their names on the election website. “We do not have their Aadhaar data any more. All the data were deleted manually,” an official said.

During the assembly elections in Telangana in December, several “missing voters” were listed who could not cast ballots because of an Aadhaar software used to delete the duplicate electorate without verification.

Following this, the Maharashtra election commission officials said Aadhaar data were deleted only after re-confirmation by the booth level officers. “Due diligence has been followed and we have ensured that the voters’ names have not been deleted,” the official said.

In 2015, the verification was done on the basis of linking of Aadhaar with voter IDs as part of the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme to identify and delete duplicate voters. Nearly 3,10,000 voters across the state had registered to link their Aadhaar cards with the electoral photo identity cards .

