BENGALURU: A
software engineer
travelled from the US to
Davanagere
to exercise his franchise in the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday.
Raghavendra Kamalakar Shet, 51, a
US resident
for the past 13 years and an employee with an IT firm in Texas, said he had tried to
vote
in the assembly elections last year and was distraught when he found his name missing from the electoral roll.
“My name was deleted from the voters’ list. It became news for the wrong reasons,” said Shet. “This time, I succeeded in exercising my franchise.”
Shet said he left Texas on April 29 and reached Bengaluru the next day. He travelled straight to Davanagere, his hometown. He was among the first to cast his vote in the morning on Tuesday.
He said, last year, his name was on the electoral roll when he checked online. He did not re-check before leaving for India. This time, he took extra measures to ensure his name was on the final electoral rolls. Friends and local BJP functionaries helped him with the process.
Shet said people must participate in elections and choose the right people to represent them. “I request the govt to provide remote voting facility,” he said.
“This would help NRIs like me to participate easily in the democratic process. The govt should introduce dual citizenship by which NRIs can continue to hold Indian nationality in case they take citizenship of other nations.”
English (US) ·