The ex-servicemen cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday sought the simplification of the procedure to nominate proxies for service electors.
“Only one form should be filled out to nominate the proxy for a service voter,” cell state convenor Lal Chand Jaswal said.
In a statement issued here, Jaswal said proxy voting was a cumbersome process, as the service elector had to fill out the proxy voting form 13F, enter the name of his proxy, and send it to his nominated proxy after the commanding officer countersigns it.
“Before this, the service voter had to fill out form number 2 and after countersign by the commanding officer, had to send it to the records office, which would forward it to the returning officer concerned after authenticating the details,” he said.
Besides, the proxy has to sign the form in the presence of a class-one magistrate and submit it to the returning officer concerned. “A number of agencies are involved in the processing system, which results in inordinate delays, which makes the voter lose interest in the system,” he added.
Jaswal said service voters were spread all over the country, including counter-insurgency areas, inhospitable border areas, snow-bound and high-altitude areas, where the postal facilities are either hard to avail or non-existent. “It results in indefinite delays and the service voters are inadvertently denied their right to vote,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Jaswal said service voters were spread all over the country, including counter-insurgency areas, inhospitable border areas, snow-bound and high-altitude areas, where the postal facilities are either hard to avail or non-existent. “It results in indefinite delays and the service voters are inadvertently denied their right to vote,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}To overcome this difficulty, the union government had introduced proxy voting for service voters in 2003.
'CM violated poll code, used red beacon'
The BJP on Friday wrote to the election commission, seeking the removal of red beacons from chief minister Virbhadra Singh's vehicles, and demanded that his staff be directed to follow the poll code. BJP spokesperson Ganesh Dutt said on Thursday, the party was contacted by some people from Dharampur, Kumarhatti and Kandaghat of Solan district who alleged that the CM, who was on his way to the state capital, was using a red beacon.