Ex servicemen seek soldiers’ right to vote

Tough provisions of voter registration for serving officers keep them away from voting.

A majority of Armed Forces and Paramilitary Forces personnel are not able to exercise their franchise despite the Election Commission of India (ECI) making provisions of the postal ballot system and proxy voting. Brigadier (Retired) Ajay Bhargava, a resident of Gurgaon, said he could not vote even once during his 35 years in the Army. “Though there is the provision of postal ballot, we hardly got any chance to vote,” he said. Similarly Brigadier (retired) B. Chandra Shekhar, a Vishisht Seva Medal winner, never got the chance to vote during his 20 years in service.

Ram Kumar, general secretary of the National Ex-Servicemen Co-ordination Committee, too, said he never voted during his service.

These ex-servicemen have got together under the banner, The Flags of Honour Foundation to fight for their rights, with the help of Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka. Chandrasekhar met Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath requesting him to address the deficiencies in the existing voting system for soldiers. In a letter written to Sampath last month, Chandrasekhar mentioned: “It is surprising that the ECI overlooks a major voting population. Majority of our soldiers are not able to exercise their right as our election system does not provide an efficient mechanism for them to cast their votes.”

An ECI provision conditions army personnel to register as voter in an area where they have been posted for three years. “Hardly any Army staff remains posted in a particular area for more than two years,” said Neela Gokhale, wife of Lt Col Kedar Gokhale, who is posted at College of Military Engineering, Pune.

She filed a PIL in the Supreme Court in December last year. The SC issued notices to ECI and the government. The hearing is to come up on 7 March.

The postal ballot system has been proved inefficient due to the long delays involved in sending out the voting sheets. Since postal ballots are printed after the withdrawal of candidates, the ECI gets only 10 days for the postal ballots to reach the destination and return before the counting.