Indian poll: Mission attestation not must Anwar Ahmad

ABU DHABI - The Indian expatriates in the UAE need not get their documents attested by the missions for applying to register for voting in the elections in their home country.

The clarification was made by Indian Ambassador to the UAE M K Lokesh as many expats have been confused about the recent announcement of the voting formalities for non-resident Indians (NRIs).

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Lokesh said there is no need for attestation of documents for sending application forms for electoral enrolment in India by post as the Election of Commission of India (ECI) accepts the self-attested passport and visa copies for the purpose.

Indian expatriates in the UAE who are willing to cast their votes in the coming state assembly elections back home can self-attest and send their electoral enrolment forms directly to the Electoral Registration Officer of their constituencies concerned in India, the envoy said.

Many people turned up at the embassy for registering themselves for voting in India. In fact, they need to download the form from the websites of Indian missions in the UAE or that of the ECI and send it directly by post to their relevant electoral constituencies, the ambassador said.
According to the ECI website, self-attested copies of the relevant pages of the passport containing particulars like the name and address details and passport details can be sent by post along with the application. If the person is submitting the form before the registration officer, the original passport has to be presented.

Copies of the relevant pages of the passport containing the current valid visa endorsement have to be self-attested if sent by post and produced with the original passport if presented in person before the registration officer.

Forms can be downloaded from website links - http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/forms/Form-6A.pdf and http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/nri/Form-6A.pdf.

The ambassador said the Indian missions here have nothing to do with the voting process back home. Only the Indian citizens who are living here can download the form from their UAE mission's websites and dispatch it to their electoral constituencies concerned in India.

"It may be noted that after your enrolment, you will be able to cast the vote in elections in your constituency if you are physically present in the polling station along with your original passport on the day of the polling," ECI website says.

NRI registration
A number of people are confused about registering on the mission's website and downloading the application form for registering their names for voting. Form 6A, which is available on the mission's website, is for registering their names for voting and 'NRI forms' are for individual's registration with the mission for NRI identification.

According to the embassy's website, "Owing to the demand of several NRIs to have a facility to register with the embassy, a provision is made for the NRIs in the UAE to register their details in our reconstructed website. Those who register with their details will get a provisional registration number in the reply e-mail.

"However, please note that the registration will be deemed valid only after the documents are verified and the entries are checked."

The process of verifying the documents and validating the details are being worked out. Therefore, those registering on the website will be assigned only a provisional registration number and not a final number or a certificate. It is also clarified that the provisional registration number may not be valid to claim the NRI status or any other claims of the NRIs, the website says.

anwar@khaleejtimes.com

Source : Khaleejtimes : http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=theuae&xfile=data/theuae/2012/january/theuae_january285.xml