Ahead of Lok Sabha polls, NRIs support vote by proxy option

Even though the procedure is yet to be ironed out by the Election Commission of India (ECI), Mohanraj Chandrasekhar, a 35-year-old IT professional living in Sydney is hopeful of making his vote count.

“During the previous elections, I was based in the UK, and even considered travelling to India to cast my vote but decided against it as the expenditure would have been huge. This year, I have decided to appoint either my father or my mother as my representative and use the proxy voting system.”

He added that since most NRIs are highly educated and have an objective view of the parties contesting in the elections, this would make their votes important for the upcoming polls.

Pallavi Nair, a student at the University of Peace in Costa Rica has already registered online for her Voter ID, which is compulsory for voting. “I was disappointed that the Government of India couldn’t facilitate an online voting facility. I do, however, understand the security concerns and proxy voting facility is a good alternative. 

As long as I don’t have to fly out to India to cast my vote, I’m happy to participate in the process,” she explained.

Several other NRIs echoed Pallavi’s sentiments and said that they would have preferred to cast their votes online, but the proxy voting facility was a better option that to not get the chance to vote at all.

Working as a digital marketer after completing her post-graduation in business studies, Vidhya Anand (25), put aside concerns about the privacy of a voter’s decision being lost in the process of proxy voting. “Why would a relative or friend judge who I vote for? They will most likely be like-minded individuals who agree with me,” she said. “I think NRIs follow Indian politics even more than people living in India. 

Even I follow what the political parties are up to and what they plan to introduce to their manifestos more actively that I used to when I was in India. I’m hoping the details of the process are out before the Lok Sabha elections so I can do my due diligence as a citizen,” Vidhya said.

As the Ministry of External Affairs declared that there are about 3.10 crore Non-Resident Indians living in 208 countries across the world and based on the ECI’s recommendation that such a vote pool could change the fate of an election, the Lok Sabha passed a bill granting NRIs the right to cast their vote through a proxy voter from the same constituency.