BILL TO ALLOW PROXY VOTING BY NRIs - PASSED BY LOK SABHA
BACKGROUND
Many NRIs had “complained” earlier that they were “unable” to vote in elections, and thus the government had decided to allow proxy voting for them .
Presently, only service personnel are permitted to vote through proxy.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED
Lok Sabha has just passed 'Representation of The People (Amendment) Bill 2017' by voice vote to extend the facility of Proxy Voting for Overseas Indians.
This Bill amend two acts:
WHAT IS PROXY VOTING ?
Proxy voting is a type of voting whereby a member can delegate his or her voting power to a representative, to enable a vote in their absence.
ABOUT THE PROXY VOTING TO NRIs
The proxy voting facility would be provided to overseas electors under the following conditions:
(i) One person can act as the proxy for only one overseas elector.
(ii) Only a person already enrolled in the same constituency in which the overseas elector is enrolled can be appointed as proxy for overseas elector.
WHO WILL BENEFIT ?
NOTES
According to a UN survey, India's diaspora population is the largest in the world with 16 million people from the country living in 2015.
According to estimates of the ministry of external affairs, there are about 3.10 crore NRIs living in different countries across the world.
From this, this is estimated that around 60 lakh are eligible for voting.
The additional votes, polled through this way, will obviously play a crucial role in state and general elections.
OTHER CHANGES - PROVISION RELATED TO SPOUSES OF SERVICE VOTERS
As of Now,, an army's wife is entitled to be enrolled as a Service voter, but a women army officer's husband is not, according to the provision in the electoral law.
So, This Bill proposes to replace the term 'wife' with 'Spouse' thus making the provision gender neutral.
In layman terms - "if a Women is in Service (Army, Police etc ) - then her husband can vote on behalf of her."
Members of the armed forces , central armed police forces , personnel of state police force posted outside their state and employee of the center posted outside India are eligible to be enrolled as Service Voters.
Modi Govt’s proxy vote bill for NRIs will lead to misuse and fraud: Shashi Tharoor
He wrote full article on this, PFB
https://theprint.in/opinion/modi-govts-bill-to-give-proxy-votes-to-nris-will-lead-to-misuse-and-fraud-shashi-tharoor/96897/
He mentioned, if Modi's Government want that NRIs would vote - He can do it by E-voting. He Stated there should be e-voting for NRIs to prevent misuse.
Various other developed countries, France etc voting via e-mail
OTHER CONCERN
Many NRIs had “complained” earlier that they were “unable” to vote in elections, and thus the government had decided to allow proxy voting for them .
Presently, only service personnel are permitted to vote through proxy.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED
Lok Sabha has just passed 'Representation of The People (Amendment) Bill 2017' by voice vote to extend the facility of Proxy Voting for Overseas Indians.
This Bill amend two acts:
- Representation of People act, 1950
- Representation of People act,1951
WHAT IS PROXY VOTING ?
Proxy voting is a type of voting whereby a member can delegate his or her voting power to a representative, to enable a vote in their absence.
ABOUT THE PROXY VOTING TO NRIs
The proxy voting facility would be provided to overseas electors under the following conditions:
(i) One person can act as the proxy for only one overseas elector.
(ii) Only a person already enrolled in the same constituency in which the overseas elector is enrolled can be appointed as proxy for overseas elector.
WHO WILL BENEFIT ?
- All Indian passport holders physically not in India at the time their municipality, state or India goes to polls.
- What about PIO/OCI card holders then? Can they vote? NO. NRIs are not Persons of Indian Origin (PIO).
NOTES
According to a UN survey, India's diaspora population is the largest in the world with 16 million people from the country living in 2015.
According to estimates of the ministry of external affairs, there are about 3.10 crore NRIs living in different countries across the world.
From this, this is estimated that around 60 lakh are eligible for voting.
The additional votes, polled through this way, will obviously play a crucial role in state and general elections.
OTHER CHANGES - PROVISION RELATED TO SPOUSES OF SERVICE VOTERS
As of Now,, an army's wife is entitled to be enrolled as a Service voter, but a women army officer's husband is not, according to the provision in the electoral law.
So, This Bill proposes to replace the term 'wife' with 'Spouse' thus making the provision gender neutral.
In layman terms - "if a Women is in Service (Army, Police etc ) - then her husband can vote on behalf of her."
Members of the armed forces , central armed police forces , personnel of state police force posted outside their state and employee of the center posted outside India are eligible to be enrolled as Service Voters.
CRITICISM
Below Statement as per Shashi's Tharoor.Modi Govt’s proxy vote bill for NRIs will lead to misuse and fraud: Shashi Tharoor
He wrote full article on this, PFB
https://theprint.in/opinion/modi-govts-bill-to-give-proxy-votes-to-nris-will-lead-to-misuse-and-fraud-shashi-tharoor/96897/
He mentioned, if Modi's Government want that NRIs would vote - He can do it by E-voting. He Stated there should be e-voting for NRIs to prevent misuse.
Various other developed countries, France etc voting via e-mail
OTHER CONCERN
- There are arguments that a provision of proxy threatens the very
core of democracy as how can we give special privilege of distance
voting to some people who have migrated abroad when there are many times
more domestic migrants who also seek to have a voting right at their
homes? It is patently discriminatory. If a person from Bihar moves to
Delhi or Mumbai in search of a job or education, he loses his right to
chose his legislator in his village but if he goes to London, he will be
entitled to special privilege.
- It cannot be guaranteed that the proxy voter will vote as per the
wishes of the actual voter. The method of proxy voting suffers from an
inherent problem of trust deficiency and violates the principle of
secrecy of voting.
- There is no guarantee that votes would not be sold to the so called proxy.
Ascertaining the genuineness of the proxy selected by an NRI for casting vote would be the toughest challenge. The Election Commission would have to devise a system or work out norms to ensure that a proxy delegated by an NRI is voting as per his desire.
For more information, you can access below links:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/nris-in-news/gulf-nris-upbeat-about-proxy-voting-bill/articleshow/65385117.cms
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bill-to-enable-nris-to-appoint-proxy-to-cast-vote-passed-by-lok-sabha-1898067
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/parliament-monsoon-session-lok-sabha-passes-bill-to-allow-nris-to-vote-by-proxy-5299918/
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/nris-in-news/gulf-nris-upbeat-about-proxy-voting-bill/articleshow/65385117.cms
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bill-to-enable-nris-to-appoint-proxy-to-cast-vote-passed-by-lok-sabha-1898067
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/parliament-monsoon-session-lok-sabha-passes-bill-to-allow-nris-to-vote-by-proxy-5299918/
Above Information is as per as per data available in news till the date when I am posting this.
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For Other Topics visit - http://learn2ogether.blogspot.com/
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