As some NRIs fly home for voting, others ask: Why no online polling?

Much like Singh, Mahesh Murthy, a venture capitalist and marketer who now lives in Dubai, is registered to vote in Hyderabad, and has been going to vote for the last few elections from Mumbai and plans to do so this time too, albeit from Dubai.

Sindhu Reddy, an entrepreneur in Birmingham has been involved in motivating other NRIs like him to travel to India to vote. “Last election we tried to get a group airline discount but that’s very difficult because everyone has to travel to different regions to vote and on different dates too. So we really cannot book bulk tickets on one route,” says Reddy, who has been in the UK for 25 years and came back from India on April 8 after a visit, but has booked to go back to Telangana in time for voting.

All three agree though that while they undertake this exercise out of a sense of responsibility as Indian citizens, it is both inconvenient and expensive and which is something the government of India needs to look into seriously.

While NRIs have been allowed to vote since 2011 and procedures put in place for that, at the end of the day, they still need to be physically present at their constituencies to vote. Since 2020, the ECI has been exploring various other means which would allow overseas voters to exercise their franchise. Talks were initiated to explore if postal ballots can be used to allow such voters to vote. The ECI’s website has a separate link for overseas voters to register. They need to fill up the necessary forms on the EC site, attach a passport size picture and get the same attested at the local Indian Consul or Embassy. Once the address is verified by the Returning Officer in India, their name would appear on the list and they can then come to vote physically at their constituencies.

Hitesh Malhotra, Dubai based CMO of a crypto exchange was raring to cast a postal ballot as per the buzz but has just learnt that it is not yet possible to do so. “I am very disappointed that I won’t be able to vote as I am unable to travel at that time,” he said.

Aniket Patil, a resident of Latur is in London for his MBA. “I was in India recently for my holidays but left before the elections. I would miss voting,” he said. Patil’s family is closely connected to politics with some of his uncles being members of the local gram panchayat. Thus a missed vote hurts the young man personally. “In an age and time of electronic money transfer surely technology could have helped overseas voters,” he said.

Overseas voters are actively being wooed by political parties both for support as well as funds. The ruling BJP by far has the largest and most vocal support base of overseas Indians. Overseas Friends of BJP in the US has kicked off rallies in major cities to rouse support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Many of them are active online to garner support for the party.

According to a UN report of 2015, India’s diaspora population is the largest in the world at 16 million people. Last month Minister of External Affairs, S Jaishankar had said in Pune that there are 3.5 crore Indians working abroad. However, registration of NRI voters, in comparison, has been very low: a little over one lakh overseas Indians are registered as voters in India, according to the EC in last year’s Lok Sabha elections. And roughly 25,000 of them flew to India to vote. Maharashtra has seen registration of 5826 such voters till April 15.

Murthy added, “As a world leader in IT and remote working, I would hope India can soon establish remote voting. As an added benefit, it’s harder to do booth-capturing online!”