NRI ‘s from Rajasthan since October have been demanding facility through internet to caste their vote for LS elections 2014, but it seems that they will not be able to cast their vote this time.
After the EC recently told the Supreme Court that the non-resident Indians may be able to cast their votes through internet from overseas, the NRIs from Rajasthan are feeling “cheated”. They said that the move was delayed as NRIs could not register in the electoral rolls in the state.
NRIs from Rajasthan had been demanding since October last year that they should be allowed to vote through Internet as it would not be viable for them to come down to Rajasthan to exercise their voting rights. However, they say the Election Commission didn’t pay attention to their demand at that time, and now when they are not registered in the electoral rolls, the EC is considering to give them voting rights through internet. It will be of no use for the NRIs from Rajasthan.
Rajasthan Association of North America’s media chairman Prem Bhandari told TOI over phone, “After voting rights were given to NRIs, I came to India in October and met several senior politicians and ministers requesting them to allow NRIs to vote through Internet or by post. But nobody paid attention,” said Bhandari.
Bhandari said that as per the EC, only 11,844 NRIs are registered in the electoral rolls. “It is a joke because there are about 25 lakh NRIs from Rajasthan alone living overseas.”
Src- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/lok-sabha-elections-2014/news/25-lakh-NRIs-from-Rajasthan-cant-vote-this-elections/articleshow/33610509.cms?
A Software Powerhouse ?
Yesterday , when I went to polling booth , there was a chaos , with a number of people complaining that their names were missing from the Electoral Rolls ( Voter Lists )
As per news-reports , in Mumbai alone , some 50,000 people returned home without casting their votes – including Deepak Parekh ! Altogether , names of some 15 lakh voters ( out of a total of 98 lakh ) were missing !
Then there are some 300 million people who will simply won’t walk down to the nearest polling booths , and wait for 1 hour to cast their votes ( – assuming that some 40 % of the 814 million eligible voters do not exercise their right to vote )
WHY ?
Going out to vote is becoming a big hassle
COULD IT BE OTHERWISE ?
Sure , if Central Government and the Election Commission care to implement my suggestion for developing a mobile App for voting . I called it , VotesApp
see .. hemenparekh.in/2013/08/votesapp.html
Or , just type in Google , ” VotesApp ”
HOW WILL IT HELP ?
> No need for 930,000 polling booths / EVMs / Ink / Papers etc
Every voter’s own mobile becomes a miniature EVM !
Any registered Voter can vote from anywhere in the World !
> Nor any need to deploy 1,100,000 people to conduct the polls
> No need for millions of Police / Military personnel
> No need for months of advance preparations, across entire country
> Voting can be completed in just ONE day – instead of over 6 weeks –
and results can be declared next day !
> Voting could be 95 % or more !
> No worry for booth-capture
> No bogus voting ( Bio-metric ID from built-in camera )
> No duplicate voting ( Self-destruct after single usage )
> No worry for any terrorist attacks
> Enormous saving of time for Voters
> No need to declare a public holiday – costing thousands of crores
worth of production
> Central Government will save, at least , Rs 2,000 Crores .
If business-friendly BJP government comes to power , it would not
hesitate to earn Rs 20,000 crores , by enabling 15 million Indian
businesses to advertise to 814 million voters , thru this mobile VotesApp –
sharply targeting by Gender / Age / Marital Status / City / Street /
Education / Income Tax paid / Employed or Jobless ..etc
> No need for Central Government to stop taking even routine decisions
If a tiny country like Estonia ( population 1.6 million ) can elect its Members of Parliament thru a VotesApp type mobile App , why can’t we ?
Already 900+ million Indians have mobiles – all of which , will soon become Smart Phones
And we call our country , a ” Software Powerhouse ” !
* hemen parekh ( 25 April 2014 / Mumbai )