96% of 24,000 NRIs registered to vote in India are from Kerala

BENGALURU: All the wooing by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and

Congress president

Rahul Gandhi of late, notwithstanding, only a minuscule 24,348 non-resident Indians (NRIs) have registered to vote with the Election Commission (EC). And, if general elections were held tomorrow, 96% of them will vote for parties in Kerala where the BJP has negligible independent influence.

While the ministry of external affairs says there are about 1.30 crore NRIs living in 208 countries, the EC does not have an estimate of how many of these qualify as voters. One major reason for low registrations is that NRIs must be physically present at polling stations under present rules.

However, with the Centre introducing a bill allowing ‘

proxy voting

’ in the

Lok Sabha

on Monday, analysts foresee other states—particularly Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh—attracting more overseas voters.

The bill, which proposes an amendment to the Representation of People Act, 1951, will change rules that mandate overseas voters need to cast their votes in person at specified polling booths. The amendment will allow NRIs to nominate proxy voters.

BJP’s national spokesperson,

Krishna Sagar Rao

, said: “The PM already has great support from NRIs. Once the proxy voting bill becomes an act, we’ll increase enrolment. We will work in each state to ensure its diaspora has an opportunity to support.”

The Congress is also working towards attracting more NRIs, and its leaders say Rahul Gandhi, the newlyappointed AICC president, is conscious of the fact. “NRIs are increasingly interested in Indian politics and it is because India is growing and its infrastructure got better in the last 15 years,” AICC secretary V Hanumantha Rao said. “While it is surprising that Andhra Pradesh and Punjab have low enrolment, we see that changing. A lot of NRIs are now even keen on contesting elections.”

Kerala very aware

Political analysts are not surprised with the numbers in Kerala, people from where, they say, are the most politically conscious.

“In a state where there is a strong Christian community, alongside Muslims and even the RSS growing, how has communism as a political ideology thrived? It is because of how politically strong and aware its people are,” said

Harish Ramaswamy

, political analyst.

Karnataka NRI Forum president Aarthi Rao argues that the prevailing confusion over when proxy voting will be enforced has kept a lot of overseas Indians on the fence. “We had a meeting on Sunday in Qatar and the feedback we received was that they are all interested but they did not want to register until this is implemented,” she said.

Zero in Karnataka

Of the 24,348 NRIs who’ve registered, 23,556 are from Kerala, and the remaining 4% or 792 are divided between the remaining 35 states and Union territories. There are 13 states/UTs, including Karnataka where not even a single NRI has registered to vote. In Punjab, which has attracted the second highest number, 364 of them registered to vote. All other states have low numbers.

Political scientist and provice chancellor of Jain University, Sandeep Shastri says: “People from Kerala are strongly connected to their roots and plugged to state politics regardless of their present residence, which is why so many people have registered even under the current rules. As things stand the numbers are not high enough to change a verdict anywhere. But both the Congress and the BJP now have the opportunity to channelise their efforts and ensure support from a large number of people.”