Which persons are not eligible. To vote in india nilitary?
Answers
In a historic development for Army, Navy and Indian Air Force personnel, the Election Commission on Monday decided to permit them to vote at their place of posting in the coming general elections by treating them as ordinary residents of that constituency.
Till now, the 15 lakh armed forces personnel used to exercise their franchise through postal ballot or by authorizing a relative in their native place as the proxy to cast the vote on their behalf.
The concession from EC, after steadfast opposition to any third alternative to postal ballot or proxy voting, came after a bench of Justices R M Lodha and Kurian Joseph criticized the commission for adopting an obstructionist approach to rob armed forces personnel of their valuable right to vote.
The court recorded the statement of EC's counsel Meenakshi Arora in its interim order on petitions filed by an Army officer's wife Neela Gokhale and Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
The EC said the decision to allow armed forces personnel to vote at their place of posting, as an interim measure, would be limited to "peace stations" and not include those posted at forward and disturbed areas.
Significantly, the EC decided to give up its rule of three-year domicile with family at the place of posting to allow personnel from Army, Navy and IAF to cast their vote at the place of posting. For this general election, wherever the election process has not commenced, the armed forces personnel posted at "peace stations' would be registered as voters and would cast their vote if he/she has been working there since January 1.
Arora said of the 15 lakh armed forces personnel, 13.5 lakh had already decided to vote through postal ballot or proxy. She said the EC decided to give postal ballots to Army within 48 hours of finalization of nominations and it was for them to get it filled and sent back to the commission.
The bench directed the Centre to give the list of peace stations to the EC within two days and requested it to take all possible measures to see that filled postal ballots were returned to the commission expeditiously before the counting day so that they did not go waste.
Prior to the change of stand, Arora had stridently opposed any third alternative to postal ballot or voting through proxy available to armed forces personnel. But senior advocates Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi and U U Lalit pointed out that the place of posting could not be a ground to deny voting rights to soldiers.
The bench asked the EC, "What is the basis for fixing three years rule for service personnel? It is not his choice that he gets posted to a remote place. Why should a person who is posted at a remote place be not treated as an ordinary citizen of that place?"
Arora said there was heavy deployment of armed forces personnel in disturbed and forward areas like north-eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir. "If they were treated as ordinary citizens at the place of posting, then it would dramatically change the demographic complexion of the place and impede the choice of the local population in electing a representative," she said.
She also said allowing armed forces personnel to vote at their place of posting would encourage political parties to seek campaigning right in cantonments. Though the bench decided to refer the matter to a larger bench for final adjudication of issues raised by Gokhale and Chandrasekhar, it did not appreciate the EC's objections.
The bench said, "It is a rather strange situation. On one hand the Election Commission wants every adult to be registered as a voter and encourages 100% voting. But on the other hand, it has taken a stand that deprives lakhs of armed forces personnel their precious right to vote.
THANKS☺️