Voter ID for welfare? What Rajiv Ranjan Singh’s proposal could mean | Explained

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Voters show their IDs as they wait in a queue at a polling booth. File | Photo Credit: ANI

Story so far: Union Minister for Panchayati Raj and senior JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh, alias Lalan Singh, on Tuesday (November 3, 2026) said that voter cards, along with biometric authentication, will be the basis for identifying beneficiaries and processing payments for welfare schemes. He argued that Aadhaar cards can be easily made at every street corner, implying that they can lead to fraudulent beneficiaries. He presented the use of voter cards along with biometric authentication as a possible mechanism to deal with such cases.

The ration card was the first mass-scale identity document, introduced during colonial rule just a few years before the eclipse of the Empire. Welfare entitlements came to be linked to stable residences and enumerated households. It was the first time that both a residential address and a household were formally enumerated, giving a singular identity to the Indian family.

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