Proxy voting: If NRIs get a right, why not domestic migrants?

Lok Sabha has passed a bill to allow proxy voting for NRIs. But millions of domestic migrants are restricted to voting from where they are registered. As part of TOI’s campaign to ensure these votes are not lost, a discussion, ‘How can we make absentee voting work in India,’ was held in Delhi last week. Participating were BJP MP GVL Narasimha Rao, ex-additional solicitor general C Aryama Sundaram, former legal adviser to EC S K Mendiratta, IIM-B professor and founder of Association for Democratic Reforms Trilochan Sastry, and founder of NGO Political Shakti Tara Krishnaswamy.Edited excerpts:
Constitutional or statutory right?
C ARYAMA SUNDARAM
Every citizen has the right to demand that he or she not be deprived of his or her vote. At the same time, I cannot… say “now please make it very easy for me”. Legally, certainly a citizen can say that, “Look, what you are doing is an obstacle to me exercising my right. Remove the obstacle.”
G V L NARASIMHA RAO
Right to vote is a statutory right. It’s not listed under fundamental rights. But the right to vote is integral to our democracy.
TRILOCHAN SASTRY
In the Association of Democratic Reform’s case, SC has in clear, ringing tones said that right to vote is a Constitutional right. Democracy is a very basic doctrine of the Constitution. And democracy is unthinkable without voting. Therefore, voting is a Constitutional right.
SK MENDIRATTA
Article 326 of the Constitution says that every adult citizen of India, on a particular qualifying date, which is January 1 of the year, is entitled to be registered in the electoral roll for his or her parliamentary and assembly constituency. To get one’s name into the electoral roll flows from the Constitution itself. So, that way it is a Constitutional right to be a voter.

Why did TOI pick up this cause?
SHANKAR RAGHURAMAN
Look at the sheer numbers. In the 2014 elections, there were 834 million registered voters. 280 million people did not vote... and 280 million is larger than the electorate of any other democracy. That is too large a number to be disenfranchised. We do understand that not all 280 million could not vote. Some of them may have chosen not to vote. But the larger part of the problem is people not being able to vote.
SUNDARAM
I don’t see disenfranchisement here. We have a right to exercise our franchise. We cannot be prevented from exercising that right. If anyone prevents us, they can be stopped. At the same time, it is nobody’s duty to make it very convenient for us to exercise that right. I have a right to work anywhere I want. I equally have a right to buy property where I want. I also have a right to vote. I have several rights. I cannot insist that I be given the right to exercise all my rights in one given place. And that the state has the duty to provide me that one given space to exercise all my rights.
TARA KRISHNASWAMY
Let me say what I actually think is a “denial” of the right to vote. In the last Karnataka election — (this relates to) a satellite town of Bengaluru called Whitefield. Lakhs of people (there) actually attempted to register their vote. But the chief electoral officer made an official statement saying that thousands of papers (for registration as voters) have been lost. Here is a case where migrants actually chose to register and there were inefficiencies in the process. So, if there is an inefficiency in the system so endemic that it is preventing lakhs of people from voting, how can you say it is not a denial of right? In a parliamentary election, I am voting for a party whose primary job is to make laws for the country and not my constituency. So, why do I have to be in my constituency?
SUNDARAM
What you (Krishnaswamy) are pointing out is a complaint against the inefficiency, so repair the inefficiency. But I won’t say because of that you can challenge the whole system.
Can votes be mobile?
MENDIRATTA
The facility of online registration is available for every village, for every city and every constituency. Our Constitution says the right to be included in the rolls is confined to a certain area, a certain constituency. We cannot say you get your name registered in Delhi and then you vote for a candidate in Kerala. You have to vote for a candidate in Delhi.
RAGHURAMAN
There are voters from a village in Bihar who come to Delhi to work for five months in a year and then go back to their village for the remaining seven months. Would you want to shift their vote to Delhi?
SUNDARAM
If (you) have a voting card from whichever constituency, and elections are notified… present your election card, get registered and immediately it gets deregistered for that election in the place where it was originally registered.
NARASIMHA RAO
Now there are problems, and solutions must be found. A big problem — particularly people from states like Bihar and UP, they go away on construction work for 3-4 months. What can be a solution that does not lend itself to any manipulation? Political parties are very innovative. Lakhs of voters were made to disappear in Karnataka because the state election machinery has a big role in enlisting voters. In Andhra Pradesh, the government is holding a survey asking whether you are happy with the government. Anybody who says he is not happy, they are silently cutting off their votes.
MENDIRATTA
EC doesn’t delete any names except on the report of its own electoral registration officers.
SASTRY
As a civil society organisation, we are very much for allowing citizens to vote wherever they can. I can live in Delhi and stand from Assam but I cannot vote from Assam if I am a resident of Delhi. The other point is, is it being misused? Who is misusing it? The citizen is not misusing it, it is all the other systems.
Why not online voting?
NARASIMHA RAO
There is no unanimity on this. Lok Sabha has passed this bill (allowing proxy voting to NRIs). If it gets passed in Rajya Sabha, this (facility) would be extended. For migrants in India, they can always transfer their vote. For NRIs they do not have that facility.
KRISHNASWAMY
There are lots of solutions that other advanced democracies are using. For example, in the US, election regulations are a state subject, not federal. Let’s say I am from California and I go to study in Iowa for four years, I am allowed to vote for California. In this country, we can have a booth set up where everybody who has registered remotely comes and votes electronically.
SUNDARAM
We will have to set up over 500 machines.
RAGHURAMAN
If fact, no. It’s all virtual EVMs. There is no real EVM in that booth.
NARASIMHA RAO
Internet voting is a big no-no.
SASTRY
People who have a commitment to the country and who are living in the country should have an equal right to vote as people who are living abroad.
NARASIMHA RAO
Nobody is against a particular group. We need to have to viable solutions.
RAGHURAMAN
The idea is that you replicate the polling booth and (have a) sanitised environment. After that you have the virtual EVM. I vote for my constituency. I already have a voter card from the constituency that I am voting for.
MENDIRATTA
As far as technology is concerned, EC is competent to provide online voting. The question is acceptability. If you press a button here, we are recording the vote there. You are seeing how much drama there is (over EVMs). So many doubts are there. How can we say I will cast my vote from here and it goes to Kerala and nobody will hack? Can you accept that system? No political party will accept that.
NARASIMHA RAO
I am opposed to any kind of voting without a paper record. Now they have paper trail of every vote cast. I object to paperless EVMs, online voting, electronic voting. This is not a standard and cannot be followed.
SASTRY
(Tongue in cheek) When I win the election, EVMs are good. When I lose the election, EVMs are bad.