Will NRIs Get Inked? Only 8 Voted in 2014, More Than 70,000 On the Rolls This Time

New Delhi: Besides running high-pitched campaigns in India, major political parties have also been sharpening their political messaging to woo the NRI community which forms a major chunk of the electorate. Data, however, shows that the voting percentage of this bloc remains quite dismal.

As per the Election Commission data, of 13,039 registered overseas voters, only eight Non-Resident Indians, or 0.06%, voted in 2014 general elections. Of these eight, four were from Gujarat, one from Rajasthan, one from West Bengal and two from Chandigarh.

The total number of NRI voters registered in 2014 included 12,234 men (93.80%) and 804 or just 6.10% women. Only one ‘Other’ gender voter made it to the list.

Five years later, the number of NRIs registered to vote has zoomed to 71,735, according to the latest EC data. This includes 66,866 or 93.21% men and 4,849 or 6.75% women, while 20 identify with ‘Other’ gender.

However, this number still paints a very grim picture of the interest among NRIs in Indian elections. Of the more than 1.30 crore NRIs, less than 1% have registered as voters as per the latest electoral roll.

This number, surprisingly, also shows that most of these registrations are concentrated in only one state. Out of the total 71,735 registered overseas voters in 2019, Kerala accounts for 66,584 voters or a whopping 92.8%.

But this is not a first for Kerala. The state has led in terms of NRI voter registration right since 2012. Out of the 10,002 NRI voters who registered in 2012, 9,838 were in Kerala. All the other states and Union Territories together accounted for only 164 voters. In other words, more than 98% of the NRIs who registered themselves as voters in India in 2012 had done so in Kerala.

As per the latest EC data, Andhra Pradesh (2,511) and Telangana (1,127) are the only two other states where more than 1,000 NRIs registered as voters.

In 2014, Puducherry topped the list in the category of Union Territories with 65 overseas voters. It included 57 men and 8 women. In 2019, this number increased to 231; 204 men and 27 women.

Three Union Territories — Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and Dadra & Nagar Haveli — have no overseas voters registrations as of now.

The states of Assam, Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Tripura, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand had zero NRI voter registrations in 2014. However, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Bihar debuted on the list in 2019.