Lucknow: As Uttar Pradesh goes into the crucial assembly polls, the question of granting voting rights to Non-resident Indians has been brought to the forefront again. The state sends hundreds of thousands of its people to work in various foreign countries but only one among them has registered as a voter back home.
An expatriate from Meerut is the only one to see his name on the list of overseas voters.
As many as 2.5 crore Indian expatriates live in different parts of the world but only 11,846 of them have registered as overseas voters after the rules were changed in their favor in 2011.
Of these, 11,488 hail from Kerala, while the other states fare poorly.
The list includes 138 expatriates from Punjab, 112 from Tamil Nadu, 56 from Puducherry, 13 from Delhi and nine from Daman and Diu.
Enrolling overseas voters is a tedious task, admits the Election Commission of India, adding that efforts were on to speed up the process in cooperation with the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian diplomatic missions in various countries.
Expatriates can apply online for voting rights. The officials will then go to the applicant’s house in India and check the veracity of the documents submitted along with the application.
The Election Commission officials said the enrollment drive has not been very effective despite an array of programs conducted through embassies to create awareness among expatriates.
