Chief Election Commission of India, Naseem Zaidi has said that non-resident Indians will soon be able to vote in Indian elections without having to travel to India.
Mr. Zaidi the Election Commission in India is working to introduce electronic postal ballots for Indians residing overseas.
He said following a change in the legislation, NRIs can now enroll without being present at their Indian address, however, a further change in law is required to enable them to vote without traveling back to India.
"After examining our options, we have decided to provide the NRIs a facility to cast their ballot through an electronic postal ballot that we will send soon after the candidates for an election are final. The NRI will be responsible for sending the postal ballot back to the returning officer," said Mr. Zaidi.
Going by the experiences, drugs and its use during election time is a manifestation of abuse of black money. Therefore the commission is very concerned. We are evolving a very robust strategy to check the use of drugs in the election process so that voters are not affected by this abuse of money manifested in the form of drugs.
He said the technology to implement the electronic postal ballot system is available and already been tested.
When asked if the Punjabi NRIs will be able to cast their ballot through e-postal ballot in the 2017 election, Mr. Zaidi said he is hopeful that the proposed amendment in the law required to extend the postal ballot facility to the NRIs will be passed by parliament soon and the same could be introduced during the Punjab election next year on experimental basis.
The CEC said that the election commission was concerned about the possible misuse of drugs and black money during the upcoming Punjab election.
"Going by the experiences, drugs and its use during election time is a manifestation of abuse of black money. Therefore the commission is very concerned. We are evolving a very robust strategy to check the use of drugs in the election process so that voters are not affected by this abuse of money manifested in the form of drugs," said Mr. Zaidi.
