Solution for NRI voting is not simple: Former Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami |
|
|
Posted on 5/4/2012 |
|
|
Implementing the voting rights for NRIs in their country of living has its own difficulties, which can be solved but not in an easy way, said Mr. N Gopalaswami IAS, Former Chief Election Commissioner of India. Comparing to other nations where their citizen can cast their poll from their country of living, Election in India is different, in terms of constituencies, number of candidates, etc. For our parliament election we have 543 constituencies, with 1000s of candidates, and there may be people from all these constituencies in 150 plus odd countries across the globe. Practically it is impossible to have 543 booths for the NRIs in each country to cast their vote. Even state wise booth is also difficult since it require a minimum of 28+ booths, said Mr. Gopalaswami . He was talking to IndiansinKuwait.com in an exclusive chat. Online solution for NRI voting also has its own difficulties. Remote access by voting machines is prone to third party interference. Solution for this can be derived, but not that easy, said Mr. Gopalaswami .
1966 batch IAS Officer of Gujarat cadre, Mr. Gopalaswami , was in Kuwait to attend a function organized by Frontliners. Gopalaswami, hails from Tamilnadu, is now leading the consumer association of India, which helps in creating consumer rights awareness among the people and helps them legally for their rights.
The idea of ‘right to call back’ needs to be widely debated. Defining the terms for ‘call back’ is a complicated issue which requires lot of debate and thinking. “If you elect a candidate, how do you evaluate that he is not competence and need to call back? How much time frame you give to decide whether he failed in his duties?” Mr. Gopalaswami asks. Define the conditions in terms of period, responsibilities, percentage of voting etc are very complicate, he said.
“Our constitution allows anyone to contest in the election. We cannot bar regional parties to contest in national election or vise versa. Election Commission only defines the parties as national parties or regional parties” he said while talking about preventing more and more smaller parties entering into polls for political bargaining.
Within the Election commission, there is a subcommittee with members from Income tax department which analysis the asset declaration of all candidates. We always submit the report to income tax department whenever we see a drastic increase in the asset of a candidate compare to his previous declaration, he said while speaking to the corruption in today’s politics.
While talking about the security of electronic voting machine, he said that any electronic device, once we handed over to the concerned people there is a possibility of tampering. But what we do is to make sure that the possibility of taking the voting machine and tampering it and returning to the same place is next to nothing, Mr. Gopalaswami said. “Before dispatching the machines to the booths, we do a rigorous test by casting 1000 votes randomly to each candidate and make sure the result displayed is correct. In the booth also we do a mock polling before the actual voting to make sure that the machine reads voting accurately.” He said. What needs to be done and we are already doing is to ensure that the possibility of somebody interfering with the machine is zero.
Mr Gopalaswami was born in Tanjavur village in Tamil Nadu. He has also played a key role in obtaining a grant of Rs.5 crore from the government of India for the preservation of the Vedas. He was instrumental in setting up Maharsi Sandipani Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratishtan, Ujjain, with a vision of preserve, conserve and develop the oral tradition of Vedic studies.
“Indians living abroad are the brand ambassadors of India and I am happy that they are keeping it up”, Mr. Gopalaswami will attend a book release function organized by Frontliners Organization on Friday evening at Al-Jeel Jadeed, School, Hawally.
|
|
|
Report: IIK; Photo: Anwar Sadath Thalassery
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are strictly personal and IndiansinKuwait.com does not hold any responsibility on them. We shall endeavour to upload/publish as many of the comments that are submitted as possible within a reasonable span of time, but we do not guarantee that all comments that are submitted will be uploaded/published. Messages that harass, abuse or threaten other members; have obscene, unlawful, defamatory, libellous, hateful, or otherwise objectionable content; or have spam, commercial or advertising content or links are liable to be removed by the editors. We also reserve the right to edit the comments that do get published. Please do not post any private information unless you want it to be available publicly.
|
|
|