Congress bats for making voting a fundamental right

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday batted for making 'Right to Vote' a fundamental right, arguing that genuine voters are being deprived of exercising their franchise through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls under an Election Commission that has "never been as compromised as it has been" under Gyanesh Kumar.

General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh claimed Kumar, the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) against whom the Opposition has submitted a fresh notice seeking his removal in Rajya Sabha, is "completely compromised" and has become a "player in the elections" in the country.

"The rot started under his predecessor. This man (Kumar) is a player and not a neutral observer...The right to vote is under threat...I believe that the time has come that the right to vote should be made a fundamental right. It is a statutory right, it is not a fundamental right. Fundamental rights are justiciable," he told reporters. At present, the right to vote is not a fundamental right but a Constitutional right. 

Recalling the debate in the Constituent Assembly on making the right to vote as a fundamental right, he said BR Ambedkar and Jagjivan Ram vigorously argued for making it a fundamental right, warning that some governments might try to disenfranchise voters in the future. 

It was eventually decided that it should be made part of the Constitution but not mark it as a fundamental right, he said.

Ramesh said, "when genuine voters are deprived of their rights, it calls into questions the urgency and the manner in which the SIR has taken place, the motives which accompanied it...With the kind of work the EC is doing now...once and for all, include the right to vote as a fundamental right for Indian citizens." 

He said Home Minister Amit Shah had talked about "three Ds -- detect, delete and deport" and they want to know how many non-Indian citizens have been detected, how many have been deleted from the rolls and how many have been deported.

On exit polls, he said he has "no faith" in such predictions as it has become a "political exercise" and "does not waste time" seeing it or reading about it. "Exit polls are compromised," he said, adding that nobody knows the basis of converting the vote share projections into seat share projections. 

He also did not read too much into the higher turnout in the Assembly elections, saying Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam always saw higher voter participation.

"It was very high earlier and now it is marginally higher," he said.

On the fresh notice against Kumar in the Rajya Sabha, he said the Opposition will continue to make efforts for the CEC's removal as he is "compromised"