New Delhi: The women and the homeless people whose number runs into millions will be barred from voting owing to difficulty in getting the identification papers, increasing their marginalisation, say human rights groups.
The general elections will begin on April 11 in India and around 900 million people are expected to vote.
There are about 4 million homeless people living in India who may be denied voting rights in spite of efforts by human rights groups.
The Delhi Election Commission’s efforts in 2014 enabled more than 10,000 homeless people in New Delhi to receive voter ID cards. But after that they could get only 3000 people to vote.
The Delhi government is taking the help of NGOs and other such non-profit organisations to reach the homeless people.
Though the officials have helped thousands of homeless people in getting the voter IDs, many of them are left unclaimed at the election commission offices as the people living in shelter homes and other such places keep moving and do not claim their voter ID cards.
Shivani Chaudhary, executive director of advocacy Housing and Land Rights Network told media persons that if the homeless people get voter ID they can use it to open bank accounts which in turn will link them to various welfare schemes of the government.
Apart from homeless people, many women in India are not registered in the voter list.
In many families they are either barred from voting or instructed to vote for a particular party or person.
According to reports, as many as 21 million women are not in the voter list with the situation worsening election after election as a result of political and social factors.
