Court orders panel to study NRI postal ballot options

By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

The Supreme Court has asked the country’s poll panel to explore the possibility of allowing postal ballot for non-resident Indians (NRI) in the next month’s staggered general elections.

“The Supreme Court has issued notices to the government and the Election Commission of India seeking to know why the diaspora voters can’t exercise their right by post since it’s too late to build an electronic voting platform,” lawyer Haris Beeran said on telephone from New Delhi.

The attorney general and the ECI were directed to reply before April 7, on the first day of polling, so that the enrolled voters from Kerala, home to the majority of NRI voters which goes to polls on April 10 in the third phase, can participate.  Counting will take place only on May 16.

Of the 11,844 enrolments so far, 11,448 are from the southern state whose diaspora population is estimated to be more than 2mn in the Gulf alone. Since the number of voters is small, setting up polling stations at the diplomatic missions is also an option.

Punjab has 138 NRI voters followed by Tamil Nadu (112), Pondicherry (56), Goa (27), Delhi and Maharashtra (13), Gujarat (7), Madhya Pradesh (6) and West Bengal (5).  In the first and second phase on April 7 and April 9, Assam, the states of Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland go to the polls. No NRI voters have enrolled from these states.

As per the official data, 10,037,761 Indians live abroad and are entitled to register online and vote if they are present in their constituency at the time of polling.

However, most of them preferred not to enroll as they were not sure of voting due to restrictions.

Dr V P Shamsheer, a recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman or the non-resident Indian award, who moved the public interest litigation wanted the court to allow NRIs to cast their vote from their country of residence.

“Though the voting law amended in 2010 was intended to allow the NRIs to vote from abroad, one of its clauses places an unreasonable restriction that they have to be physically present at the polling booth,” said Beeran, the counsel for the petitioner. Stressing the need for alternatives, he said the low enrolment even after offering an online option has defeated the very purpose of the 2010 amendment.

“This forward thinking progressive legislation has been turned into merely an impractical gesture,” he said. The petitioner, who runs nine hospitals in the Gulf and a pharmaceutical manufacturing unit, employing some 5,600 people, 3,600 of them Indians, said he migrated to the UAE 12 years ago and subsequently he was removed from the electoral roll.

According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 20 of the 114 countries allowing external voting in the world, were in Asia.

They have adopted methods like personal voting at the diplomatic missions, postal vote, proxy vote and electronic voting. “A number of countries have adopted either one or even two of them, so as to make the process easier,” he said, adding that NRIs were forced to seek jobs abroad because of the lack of opportunities back home.

The amendment to the 1950 Representation of Peoples Act was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in February, 2006, seeking to give voting rights to Indians living abroad for employment or education.

The amendment came into force on September 21, 2010. The state election commission in Gujarat, which is responsible for conducting civic polls, issued a notification in the same year allowing e-voting from the comforts of homes or an e-polling station. In the ensuing polls in six municipal corporations, 124 e-votes were cast through the portal onlinevotinggujarat.gov.in by voters using their password. Only seven NRI voters from Gujarat enrolled this time according to the latest figures released by the ECI.

“The law is not in consonance with the objects and reasons behind promulgating it,” the petitioner pointed out.

The Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC), a feeder outfit of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) working among the expatriates in the Gulf, had earlier announced it would charter flights to ferry voters before the polls. The first flight will arrive at the Calicut International Airport on April 7 from Dubai. IUML leaders E Ahamed, the junior foreign minister, and E T Mohamed Basheer are seeking re-election from their respective constituencies of Malappuram and Ponnani in the Muslim-dominated Malappuram district from where they were elected by huge margins in 2009.