Congress leader Naveen Jindal on Thursday met Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampat here regarding the issue of absentee voting and said that Indian democracy was based on the basic framework of ensuring the right to vote of all citizens who are eligible to vote. But in practice, the enforcement of this right was undermined by the existing legal and regulatory regime, he added.
A Press communiqué issued by JSPl, Ranchi, stated that in his meeting with the CEC, the Kurukshetra MP reiterated his concern on the fact that there are no provisions in Indian law to enable migrant workers within India (estimated to be over 100 millions), students studying abroad (more than 80,000 per annum go to US alone), travelling business professionals and senior or unwell citizens who may not be able to travel to the polling booth, to vote in an alternative manner.
Subsequently, he raised the point that while voting right was granted to the citizens of India, who are living abroad but have not acquired citizenship of any other country; however, after getting registered with the local Electoral Registration Officer by making application in Form 6, they have to be physically present at the polling booth on the day of the election to register their vote.
Jindal mentioned that the Government, in its reply to a question raised by him in lok Sabha in March this year, stated that only 13 overseas electors voted in the legislative Assembly elections of five States i.e. Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, held in the year 2012.
The MP again stressed that in the true spirit of Indian democracy, it is imperative that the country now expands the postal ballot system to allow all Indian citizens to exercise their right to vote by post or any other form of absentee voting, such as Internet voting, proxy voting, etc. as is being done in other countries.
He pointed out that India already has a limited form of postal voting but it is not accessed by enough people to create a meaningful impact towards making the electoral process more inclusive. Section 60(c) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 provides for Election Commission to notify a class of persons, in consultation with the Government, to be entitled to exercise their right to vote by way of postal ballot. So Election Commission can, in consultation with the Government, notify overseas Indians, migrant workers, students studying abroad, unwell and senior citizens “as a class of persons” to whom the right to vote by way of postal ballot can be extended.
Jindal conveyed to the CEC that the purpose of this effort is to make the electoral process in India far more inclusive and far less cumbersome, so that each and every Indian is able to exercise not only the right to vote, but also have the opportunity to vote.
The Chief Election Commissioner assured that the Election Commission will look into feasibility of extending absentee voting rights to various categories of voters.