The Arabian Stories will be running the exclusive interview in three parts, with Part 1 starting today.

From Our Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Bill to provide proxy voting rights to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) was handled in a very cavalier manner by the government, Dr Shashi Tharoor, Indian parliamentarian, chairman of Indian Parliament’s External Affairs Standing Committee, said.

“It was poorly drafted, without any procedural safeguards. They refused to refer it to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for further consultation. The Bill was hastily passed in the Lok Sabha,” Dr Tharoor said.

NRI Voting Background
A long-standing demand of some 31 million non-resident Indians (NRIs) to get voting rights will not be fulfilled in this coming general election either, as the Central government has failed to discuss and pass the Representation of People (Amendment Bill).

The Representation of People (Amendment Bill), passed in August 2018 in Lok Sabha, had to be passed in the Rajya Sabha to become an Act.

However, the Rajya Sabha, which convened for the Budget Session from January 31 to February 13 failed to discuss and pass the Bill, disappointing NRIs.

It was poorly drafted, without any procedural safeguards. They refused to refer it to a Parliamentary Standing Committee for further consultation. The Bill was hastily passed in the Lok Sabha.

Dr Shashi Tharoor

NRIs can, at present, cast their votes in the constituencies where they were registered. But they have to travel to India on voting day.

The amendments in the Representation of People Act 1950 and Representation of People Act 1951, if passed, would have enabled NRIs to cast votes through their proxies in the constituency.

The 1950 Act deals with the allocation of seats and delimitation of constituencies for elections, qualifications of voters and preparation of electoral rolls.

The 1951 Act provides for the conduct of elections and offenses and disputes related to elections.

Section 20A of the 1950 Act recognizes the right of an NRI to have her name entered in the electoral roll.

However, the right to vote is exercisable only in person. In order to allow proxy voting by NRIs, Section 60 of the 1951 Act was amended by the Bill, by adding a sub-section.

It is that Section 60 which enables the Election Commission of India (ECI) to frame rules to allow the special procedure for voting by a special class of persons.

It is through an exercise of this provision that the ECI has allowed indirect methods of casting votes like postal vote, vote by wife and others.

The new proposed sub-section enables the ECI to frame rules to make a special procedure for any of the persons as is referred to in section 20A of the 1950-Act to cast his vote either in person or by proxy.

However, as the Bill has lapsed, NRIs will not get the right to cast proxy votes.

Pretending to support NRIs

“The main aim of the government was to pretend to be working in favour of the NRI community in order to win votes for the 2019 elections, but their lack of enthusiasm in bringing it to the Rajya Sabha, failure to refer it to a Standing Committee for further improvement and the lack of ground work to enable its implementation for the upcoming election, revealed their hollow rhetoric,” Dr Tharoor said.

According to Tharoor, it is the responsibility of the government to bring a well drafted and comprehensive Bill to the Parliament, however they failed to do so.

(To be continued…)