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Vice-President decides to remain a Rajasthan voter

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI SEPT. 9. The Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, has decided not to become a registered voter of the New Delhi parliamentary constituency, where he has been staying for the past one year now, and instead continue to exercise his right of franchise in his home State of Rajasthan.

Mr. Shekhawat's decision was communicated to the Election Commission recently. The Commission had approached the Vice-President with Form 6 (application for becoming a voter) as part of its drive to include all the left out VIPs in the electoral list before Delhi Assembly elections due later this year.

At the same time, the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, was recently enrolled as a voter of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Earlier, he was a voter of Asiad Games Village.

In another interesting development, the Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna Advani, is believed to have informed the Commission that he would soon be filling up Form 6 to become a registered voter of the New Delhi parliamentary constituency. He is a resident of Prithvi Raj Road. In the present Lok Sabha, he represents the Gandhinagar parliamentary constituency in Gujarat.

Well informed sources in the Commission revealed that Mr. Shekhawat was not interested in becoming a registered voter at 6 Maulana Azad Road, which is the official residence of Vice-President. Mr. Shekhawat is understood to have told them that he was already having an Electoral's Photo Identity Card (EPIC) from Rajashtan and would continue to remain a voter of his home State.

By doing so Mr. Shekhawat has probably broken past convention. "Almost all the Vice-President had conventionally been a voter of 6 Maulana Azad Road,'' officials asserted But, there has been no violations, they said. As per Section 19 of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1950, any person who is "ordinarily a resident'' in a constituency is eligible to become a elector. However, through a Presidential notification dated April 18, 1960, more than a dozen categories of citizens were exempted including the President, Vice-President, Governors and Cabinet Ministers.

Under the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, Mr. Shekhawat would have to fill Form 1 to declare himself as an ordinary resident of his home State. "The same is the case with a large number of Ministers and elected representatives staying in Lutyen's Delhi,'' officials said.

Highly placed sources in the Commission said that discrepancies with regard to VVIPs enrolment in the voters list have been almost removed. The name of the former President, K. R. Narayanan, has been deleted from the voter's list of Rashtrapati Bhawan and now he has become a voter of 34 Prithvi Raj Road.

More than a year after the demise of the former Vice-President, Krishan Kant, his name has been deleted from the voters list of 6 Maulana Azad Road along with his wife Suman Krishan Kant. Ms. Kant is now a voter from 4 Krishna Menon Marg, her new residence.

"Now special efforts are being made to make the EPIC for these VVIPs. Though there is a VIP EPIC centre at Kashmere Gate, we are willing to go to homes of the VVIPs to make their EPIC for security reasons,'' officials said.

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