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Two days after the Election Commission held a meeting with political parties to discuss its proposal for remote voting, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar Wednesday said the meeting was a success and that there was consensus that the “30 crore missing voters” should be facilitated in exercising their franchise.
He described the proposal on remote voting as a “work in progress” and said the EC had given political parties time till February 28 to respond with their written comments on it.
The EC met representatives of all eight national parties and 40 state parties on Monday to discuss ways of increasing voter turnout among domestic migrants.
The EC had planned a demonstration of a prototype Remote Voting Machine (RVM) developed by Electronics Corporation of India, but after nearly all parties opposed the idea, it was put off.
While addressing a press conference here to announce Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland elections on Wednesday, the CEC was asked whether the poll panel was able to address the parties’ concerns on the RVM. He said about 30 crore registered electors did not cast their votes in the last Lok Sabha elections, which was a cause for concern.
He said “youth apathy” and “urban apathy” were among the reasons for this, but domestic migration was another important one.
“To my understanding, the meeting was very successful for a variety of reasons. The whole day people sat and discussed the issue. The issue of 30 crore missing voters has come into the mainstream today…In any democracy, to take a decision and find a solution takes some time. It’s not an easy subject, but everybody agreed that this is an area where all of us need to work together to bring all our voters, to the extent possible, to the booth (to cast vote),” he said.
“How to get 30 crore people to participate in voting is a cause of worry for all and a topic to be pursued by all – consensus has been built on this,” he said.
Among the objections raised by opposition parties is the definition of a ‘remote voter’ when the EC itself has admitted there is no database of migrant workers. The CEC said the definition of migrant voter and how the registration of such voters should be done were among the issues to be discussed.
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