Achi news desk-
This edition of GPlus, among other things, reports on sections of citizens who have been denied the right to vote due to various circumstances in which they find themselves.
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Such citizens include those who are forced to live away from their homes to earn a living or to pursue higher education; They will have to bear the costs, which may be steep, to return home to vote, or they will not be able to juggle work and calling for a vote.
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There is another section that includes elderly citizens, who live in nursing homes and who, after being separated from their families and their homes, may no longer have the relevant documents that would allow them to exercise the franchise.
However, these two sections have one common thread: they are eager to vote and desperately want their voice to be counted to be part of the democratic process, which is the largest in the world.
For its part, the Election Commission of India (ECI) tasked with conducting elections in the country is making every effort to make the elections inclusive; His stated motto is ‘no voter will be left behind’.
After all, every vote counts. In line with this vision, the ECI has made several arrangements to ensure the participation of the maximum number of voters in the election process.
For example, it allowed citizens 85 and older to vote at home using a mail-in ballot.
The same allowance was given to people with a 40 percent disability.
Besides, voting day arrives and ECI teams cross into remote locations, from mountains to jungles; There is an example of election workers who traveled 300 miles over four days to a village with only one voter close to the border with China, in Arunachal Pradesh.
Then there is a polling station on a river in the West Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya, where the poll workers go in life jackets and accompanied by divers.
Given such laudable efforts, there is no reason why migrant workers in cities and towns or even elderly people living in nursing homes should not be accommodated in the democratic exercise.
While thanks to voting, it can also be mentioned that it is not a fundamental right, which even the Supreme Court found paradoxical when democracy was recognized as a fundamental feature of the Indian Constitution.
“Democracy was considered part of one of the essential characteristics of the constitution.
However, somewhat paradoxically, the right to vote has not yet been recognized as a fundamental right; It was termed as a statutory right only,” the country’s top judge noted when delivering a ruling last year.
The right finds expression in Article 326 of the Constitution, which states that any person who is a citizen of India and is not less than 18 years of age and is not disqualified in any other way according to this Constitution or any law established by an appropriate legislature on the grounds of non-residence, bad faith, crime or corrupt behavior or illegal, you will be entitled to register as a voter in any election.
As the debate continues, one can hope that one day the right to vote will grant society the right to equality, the right to freedom, the right against exploitation, the right to religious freedom, cultural and educational rights, and the right to constitutional remedies as a fundamental right. .
