CPI(M) slams Minister’s suggestion on biometric, voter ID link for welfare benefits

CPI (M) general secretary MA Baby. File

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Wednesday (November 4, 2026) criticised the Union Panchayati Raj Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh’s remarks that Aadhaar should be replaced with biometrics and voter identity cards as the identification document for welfare disbursals. The party termed the move “a further assault on the rural poor” and urged the government to withdraw what it called an exclusionary decision.

The party demanded that the welfare programmes should be extended on a universal basis, without making access to benefits contingent on documents or technological requirements that many poor households were unable to meet.

The CPI(M) argued that biometric authentication had repeatedly resulted in beneficiaries being denied access to welfare schemes, particularly in rural employment programmes. It claimed that elderly women workers were often unable to receive benefits because machines failed to capture their iris data, while manual labourers faced difficulties as their fingerprints could not be matched by the biometric system due to wear and tear. It also contended that electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) requirements effectively exclude many rural households that did not have access to smartphones.

The party accused the Centre of reneging on assurances given to the Supreme Court that Aadhaar would not be made compulsory for welfare benefits. It said that although Aadhaar had been promoted as a reliable system for identification and authentication, the government was now moving away from it while continuing to impose technology-based conditions for access to welfare schemes.

Linking the proposed move with the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the CPI(M) said it would worsen the exclusion, considering deletion of 13.4 crore voters with members of marginalised communities, Muslims, women and economically weaker groups disproportionately affected. It alleged that some State governments were already denying ration and other welfare entitlements to individuals whose names were deleted from electoral rolls during the revision process.