'Shocked By Response Provided By UIDAI On Aadhaar Deactivation Of People Of West Bengal: TMC MP
West Bengal has been accusing the central government of deactivating many of its people’s Aadhaar card recently. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had last month raised concern over the mysterious deactivation of the Aadhar cards especially of people belonging to SC and ST.
Taking to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the TMC MP Saket Gokhale today expressed his shock over the response he received from Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government agency tasked with Aadhaar, terming it as “shocking.” He said that despite reports of Aadhaar being deactivated, the UIDAI claimed that no Aadhaar was deactivated. The TMC MP then pointed out that “surprisingly” the Union Minister for port and shipping Shantanu Thakur who has no business with Aadhaar said that Aadhaar cards had been deactivated due to a “technical glitch.”
Mr Gokhale also said that the minister shared a private Whatsapp number and non-official Gmail address of his Personal assistant asking people with deactivated Aadhaar to contact him with details.
The TMC MP says after the shipping minister’s claim of technical glitch, he wrote to UIDAI to know the actual reasons behind the Aadhar deactivation, but, Gokhale says, he received irrelevant response and the agency tried to bury the matter. He then shared the response provided by the Aadhar agency, UIDAI, terming it bizarre and shocking.
He said that that the agency claimed it does not maintain state-wise and reason-wise data of the deactivated Aadhaar. The agency does not have information about the deactivated Aadhaar cards nor why were deactivated.
Noting the imminent election, the MP Asked UIDAI to disclose the number of deactivated Aadhar cards in West Bengal and other states in the last month and sought the records of reasons for the deactivation of Aadhaar maintained by the agency. He further questioned the deactivation of Aadhaar without the knowledge of UIDAI. “Is the Modi Govt bypassing UIDAI to deactivate Aadhaar & keeping them in the dark?” Mr Gokhale asked.
“How did Minister Shantanu know details of Aadhaar deactivation in Bengal which even the UIDAI didn”t know? How was the Minister”s PA allowed by UIDAI to deal with complaints of Aadhaar deactivation and collect confidential details without any power?”
Mr Gokhale further noted that the Aadhaar is the most sensitive data of any Indian and is linked to their banks, mobile phones, PAN, and other records.
“How is UIDAI clueless about Aadhaar cards being randomly deleted and how are Modi Govt ministers handling Aadhaar deactivation instead of UIDAI? Is Modi Govt messing with Aadhaar while the UIDAI quietly watches?” the TMC spokesperson added. Mr Gokhale also shared the UIDAI response in his Twitter post.
Shocking details on mysterious Aadhaar deactivation 👇
Last month, there were multiple reports of Aadhaar cards of people being deactivated across West Bengal. Reportedly in other states too.
Surprisingly, while UIDAI claimed “no Aadhaar deactivated”, Union Minister… pic.twitter.com/CLy6om8OrA
— Saket Gokhale (@SaketGokhale) March 20, 2024
