Scrap the amendments to poll rules, DMK urges EC

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) on Monday urged the Election Commission to recommend to the Centre to scrap the amendments made to The Conduct of Elections (Amendment) Rules, 2019 and The Conduct of Elections (Amendment)Rules, 2020.

In a letter to the poll panel, DMK President MK Stalin also urged it to hold a consultative process with all political parties and relevant stakeholders across the country to find the best solution that can ensure the safety of citizens without compromising their statutory right to cast their vote independently.

Terming the amendments an attempt to bring an ocean of voters under the purview of a newly carved-out class of "absentee voters", he said: "This exercise is done by the ECI without studying the ramifications of the move. The move will certainly destroy free and fair elections in the world's largest democracy."

Prior to the amendment of the rules, there were three classes of voters - service vote, special voters and voter on election duty and the old rules specified the persons who are entitled to vote by postal ballot.

"These voters are a definite class of persons who are identifiable and are less in number. The classification is reasonable and there are strong, valid and underlying reasons for providing with postal ballot in favour of these classes of persons," Stalin said.

However, he said that the new amendments introduces a bunch of divergent groups of persons all rolled in to one group called "absentee voters", all of whom would be entitled for postal ballot voting.

"These persons by no stretch of imagination can be called as a 'class of persons' to satisfy the mandate of Section 60(c) of RP Act (Representation of Peoples Act)," Stalin told the EC.

He also said the class of persons who are absentee voters could have been defined when the amendments was made instead of reserving it for a later date.

"This shows that there is a hidden agenda, to add class of persons from time to time, depending on the election schedule, and there is a total lack of transparency as to who all can be part of this 'class of persons'. The Rule therefore gives enormous power to notify the class of persons entitled for postal ballot by the Election Commission at a later date. Such a sub-delegation is illegal as it suffers from the vice of excessive delegation of powers," the DMK leader said.

Stalin said the amendment also includes senior citizens, persons with disability, and persons employed in essential services as absentee voters.

"Here again the group of persons mentioned in the definition of absentee voters has no rational nexus with each other. The mischief which the amendment would cause is that any group of persons could be named as absentee voters without any rationale or without being a class by themselves which is contrary to the reasonable classification recognised by law," he said.

According to Stalin, the amendment does not define a person with disability for postal vote. The reduction of the age to qualify as senior citizen from 80 to 65 to be eligible for postal voting is illegal, he added.