India's Law minister introduced the Representation of People(Amendment Bill) in Lok Sabha last year in December, and it was passed earlier this month (9th August). The bill now needs Rajya Sabha's (Upper House) and President's approval to be law.
The Representation of the People Act 1950 has provisions for allocation of seats and delimitation of constituencies for elections, qualifications of voters, and preparation of electoral rolls.
The Representation of the People Act 1951 has provisions for the conduct of elections and offences and disputes related to elections.
As per the Representation of People Act 1951, an overseas voter can only vote in person. The Bill needs an amendment to allow an overseas voter to cast their vote in person or by proxy in the constituency. To enable proxy voting by NRIs, Section 60 of the 1951 Act is proposed to be amended by the Bill. It allows the Election Commission to frame rules to allow the particular procedure for voting by specific class of persons. It is in an exercise of this provision that the EC has allowed indirect methods of casting a vote like postal vote, vote by wife etc.
The new sub-section seeks to enable the EC to frame rules to make a special procedure for the person as is referred to in section 20A of the 1950 Act and allow him to vote in person or by proxy and not in any other manner at any election in a constituency where the poll is taken.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar said it was a "momentous event", he was speaking at the debate on the Bill. He said that this is a significant opportunity was being given to non-resident Indians (NRIs).
The amendment will satisfy the long-standing demand of the NRI community for voting rights.
As the NEWS 18 reported, The Law Minister's statement on the objective of the Bill reads, “The said rules (Registration of Electors Rules, 1960) stipulate the physical presence of the overseas electors in the respective polling station in India on the day of polling. This causes hardship to the overseas electors in exercising their franchise by being present in India on the day of polling,”
During his Sydney Visit earlier this year, Indian Election Commissioner Mr O.P Rawat said, "Indian diaspora is the largest in the world but registration of NRI voters, in comparison, has been low."
Mr Rawat informed that now Indian passport holders can register themselves as overseas voters through the National Voters' Service Portal. This step will allow the Indian citizen who is living abroad to register as a voter for the constituency based on the address in the passport.
He also commented on whether Indian passport holder NRIs would be able to vote in Indian elections, and said the commission was carrying out postal vote service for armed forces as well as for the people serving in the Commission abroad through the one-way electronic delivery of postal vote. That means the voter receives the ballot electronically; the person needs to print it and cast his/ her vote and then post the ballot with vote via the provided envelope.
“So that is already being done for the domestic and international service voters, and I think in future we can always make this one-way electronic delivery, two-way. And when that becomes possible, voting from anywhere in the world, becomes very simple,” Indian Election Commissioner Mr O.P Rawat said.
Hardik Parikh, a professor at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar says the provision of Proxy Voting can go against the concept of the secret ballot because the NRI person has to disclose his or her choice to another person. Another concern is there is no surety that the appointed proxy will caste the vote for the preferred candidate.
"Because proxy vote completely depends on the trust of the delegated proxy voter, it opens the gate for electoral fraud. Proxy vote provision is against the core essence of a secret ballot. You do not know if the appointed proxy will vote for the candidate preferred by the overseas - NRI voter, But we need to wait till this both the houses pass the Bill for the exact provisions " - Hardik Parikh,a professor at Gujarat National Law University
The Law Minister also assured that the proxy provision could not be misused, the government will make rules in such a way that if the law is flouted, it will lead to cancellation of the mandate.
And, people shared their concerns via Twitter:
