Away, but want to vote

Nagender Chindam, from Secunderabad, went on a hunger strike at Tavistock Square, London on January 26. His cause absentee voting rights for temporarily Non-Resident Indians. Despite the extreme cold he was joined by many others who believed in the cause.  He is in the city now for just one reason  to vote in the upcoming 2014 elections.

Nagender Chindam, the co-founder of Pravasi Bharat, an organisation campaigning for the absentee ballot system for NRIs, has humble roots in Regimental Bazaar, Secunderabad.

Born in Secunderabad and having lived his childhood in poor conditions, Nagender Chindam thanks his father for making sure he never gave up on his studies.

“I studied in Wesley Boys High School near Paradise. For my graduation, I went to NIT Warangal and that changed my life,” says Nagender, adding “Being selected for a top engineering institute of the country instilled a lot of confidence in me.”

Ever since its formation in 2012 in UK, Pravasi Bharat has had many more branches in countries like US, Dubai and even Afghan-istan. The Pravasi Bharat group held a walk from the Mahatma Gandhi statue at Tavistock square to Aldwych, London where the Indian High Commission is located. They filed a Public Interest Litigation in January 2013 in reply to which in February 2013 the Supreme Court issued notices to the Government of India and the Election Commission. “There was no response to any of it. It was in February 2014, that the government listed the petition again in the Supreme Court. The Election Commission asked the Supreme Court to give them four weeks to file a counter petition but nothing has happened,” says Nagender

Nagender believes that it is still not late and a software can be developed which can provide for a method of voting online. “It is never too late to insist on exercising your fundamental right,” he says.

Relating an incident that highlighted differences between Indian and British governments he says, “A British MP got back to me within a day when I reached out to him despite the fact that I wasn’t even a British citizen,” says Nagender. “Here in India, politics is not reachable for the common man. That’s when I thought, we can make a big difference by at least voting for the right person. The voting percentage in India for the last elections was 58 per cent while for UK it was 70 per cent, my aim is to increase India’s percentage,” he says.

The Representation of People (Amendment) Act, 2010, says that Indian citizens holding an Indian passport have to be physically present in their constituency to vote.

Nagender believes absentee ballots can act as the dynamics of Indian politics. “There are about 10 million NRIs temporarily living abroad, which means at least 18,000 people per constituency. There are instances of MPs winning by a 5,000 vote margin. Imagine what a difference these 18,000 votes can make,” he says.

Nagender, a Software Engineer from NIT, went on to work at many firms like Patny computers and Genpact. In 2008, he got the opportunity to work as a business analyst for Compass group in Birmingham, UK. Today, he is the director of his own company, Think BI Solutions that has clients ranging from Ralph Lauren to Barclays.