Explained: Right to Vote for NRI's

The founding stone of Democracy is a representation of people in governance. The most basic and convenient way for a common man to represent is to choose his/her representative via voting. India is the living example of Universal Adult suffrage imbibed in the ideals of our constitution through Article 326.

Since 2010 when Non-resident Indians (NRIs) were given the Right to vote in Indian elections for the first time, it had been a debatable question whether the step took the Indian democratic model a step forward or backward.

The extent of this right has also been deeply debated and discussed by the government, political parties, and concerned institutions like the Election Commission of India.

This article will briefly discuss the extent of the right to vote available to NRIs, its efficacy and impact on Indian democratic structure, the reformations that have been introduced, and those suggested for the time being.

Available Methods for voting in India

During the 2019 general elections, fake information got viral over the web and social media claiming that “overseas voters can now vote online from the comfort of their homes at foreign lands”.

This false message created a lot of chaos owing to which the Election commission of India came forward to clarify the situation and lodged a complaint with the Delhi police regarding the spread of fake news.

It should be kept in mind that e-voting (online voting) is not allowed to any person in India yet. There are only three possible ways in which a voter can cast his vote in Indian elections. The three methods are exhaustive and all-inclusive. They are-

1. Physically going to the polling
2. Postal ballots (It is available only to armed forces personnel and government officials on election duty)

• Proxy Voting (It was introduced in 2003. It is available only to “classified service voter” that include members of armed forces, BSF, CRPF, CISF, General engineering reserve force, and border road organization personnel posted outside the territory of India).
• (Appalling fact: Under the concerned laws a wife is allowed as a proxy voter on behalf of her husband posted abroad, but if a wife is posted abroad then the Husband is not allowed to be her proxy voter. It manifests the intensity of male chauvinism in our enlightened )

Procedure for appointing proxy voter

Form 13 F is required to be filled for the appointment of a proxy voter. It should be signed by the “classified service voter” and the proxy voter need to sign it before a first-class magistrate, or Notary, or the Commanding officer of that “Classified service voter”.

Who is an NRI? How can an NRI apply for the Right to vote?

According to Indian laws, a Non-resident Indian is a person holding an Indian passport who has resided outside the territory of India for 182 days or more (not necessarily continuous) in a single financial year.

According to Section 20 A of Representation of people’s act, 1950 an NRI settled in Foreign land is entitled to be on the electoral roll of Indian elections. The requisites for it are as follows:

1. The person should hold an Indian
2. The person should be a citizen of India and is absent from the country owing to education, employment

• He/She should not have acquired citizenship of any other

1. He/She is required to fill form 6A and register himself/herself as an Overseas
2. The duly filled Form 6A should be submitted to the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) of the concerned
3. After the process of verification, the person is added to the Electoral roll under the head of ‘overseas voter’.

NRIs vs Overseas citizen of India

• People who were eligible to be a citizen of India on or after the commencement of the constitution or whose parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were born in India or have been Indian citizen after the commencement of the Constitution or belonged to territories that became part of the Union of India after independence are called Overseas citizen of India (OCI).

• It includes persons of Indian origin who have citizenship of some other country and thus doesn’t have voting right in India, nor they have the authority to contest in elections in India. OCI and NRI should not be understood as one and the same.

• The OCI status emerged from the Citizenship act, 2005. Unlike NRIs, OCIs can be permanent residents. While OCIs don’t have voting rights while NRIs have one.

The compulsion of Corporeal presence: A big hurdle for NRI voters

• At present the only possible way through which an overseas voter can cast his vote is by physically traveling to the polling booth in the constituency where his/her name has been registered in the Electoral roll.

• No rational human being would travel thousands of miles at the cost of his precious time and money for the mere purpose of casting a vote.

• Due to this obstacle, India witnesses only 11,500 (approx) NRI voters out of the whopping 1 crore population of NRIs present around the globe. Out of these 11,500 voters (not even 1% of the total NRIs eligible for voting), the majority hails from the state of Kerala.

• The government and concerned bodies have tried to overcome this problem but the accomplishment is yet to be achieved-

 The Representation of People (Amendment) Bill, 2017

• This bill was introduced and successfully passed the passage of Lok Sabha, but was stuck in the Rajya Sabha and then got lapsed with the dissolution of 16th Lok Sabha. This bill was a commendable step by the government.

• The bill proposed an amendment to Section 60 of the Representation of People act, 1950 through which overseas voters (NRIs) were allowed to nominate a proxy voter for them.

 In the December 2020 Election Commission’s recent letter to the Government

• Recently the EC has notified the government that it is technically and administratively ready to let NRIs vote through an Electronically transmitted postal ballot system (ETPBS) for elections scheduled to be held in the early half of 2021 in the states of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry.

• However, the law ministry has denounced the suggestion. Congress is the only party in favor of the step suggested by the EC.

• Interestingly, in 2014 the Election commission committee consulted 6 national political parties regarding allowing proxy voting to NRI voters, BJP was the only one in favor of the motion. This time Congress is the only one in favor of the motion calling for ETPBS.

Note: It should be noted that if the government would want to extend the facility of ETBPS to NRI voters then it only needs to amend ‘Conduct of election rules, 1961’, and for it there is no requirement of Parliament’s nod.