AP Muhammed Afsal
Doha: An Indian businessman who has lived in Doha for the last three decades has been voted in to the Legislative Assembly of Kerala, India’s southernmost coastal state, in a closely contested electoral battle. Parakkal Abdulla of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) defeated his rival candidate, KK Lathika of the Communist Party of Indian Marxists (CPI-M) by 1157 votes in the Kuttiadi constituency of North Malabar region. Abdulla won 71,809 of the 157,895 votes cast while the incumbent Lathika tailed close behind with 70,652 votes.
In an election which saw a strong anti-incumbency wave rout the United Democratic Front (UDF) coalition, Abdulla saved his skin. His party, the second biggest constituent in the ruling coalition, also evaded a massive drubbing. “I am thrilled, but I treat it with humility and all praise is to the God almighty,” an upbeat Abdulla told The Peninsula over the phone.
Abdulla started his career as a shop assistant in Doha in 1985. With hard work and shrewd entrepreneurship he expanded his business with multiple ventures. He has been active in social work and charity while leading the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) from the front.
For a state where three million— almost 10 per cent – of its people work for a living outside of its territory with a man from every third household working in Gulf Arab countries, Kerala rarely nurtures the political ambition of returning Gulf migrants. Every year, Gulf expats send home more than Rs1 trillion according to data from banks in the state; in other words, their remittances form almost a third of Kerala’s net state domestic product of about Rs3 trillion, according to the state’s latest economic review, quoted by business daily Mint.
An “ex-Gulf” can often buy, become, and own many things but when it comes to his political rights such as voting and contesting in elections, the odds are against him; there is political opposition and bureaucratic obstacles. “People deeply entrenched in Communism, the states’ leading political faith, loves to hate private wealth and investors, though the situations seems to slightly change in recent times,” observes VK Jabir, a Doha based Indian journalist.
The NRI (Non-Resident Indian) candidates who tried their luck in politics faced fierce opposition and lawsuits. When a Dubai based businessman, PV Abdul Wahab, now an MP serving his second term in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, was included in the voters list in 2004, his political rivals upped the ante against what they saw as a backdoor entry. A CPI-M youth leader even took Wahab to court without success. But things are changing: two other “Gulf” candidates also won the election this time around: Manjalamkuzhi Ali from Perinthalmanna and Thomas Chandy, who is fondly called Kuwait Chandy from Kuttanad.
Nevermind contesting elections, just voting itself has been a distant dream for many the NRIs. It was only by an amendment made in 2010 the Representation of the People Act 1950, which made voting possible for Many NRIs. The amendment says: “…every citizen of India (a) whose name is not included in the electoral roll (b) who has not acquired the citizenship of any other country and (c) who is absenting from his place owing to employment and education or otherwise outside the India(whether temporarily or not), shall be entitled to have his name registered in the electoral roll in the constituency in which his place of residence India as mentioned in his passport is located.”
So, voting is possible in India for NRIs if he happens to be at home on the day of polling. Earlier, continued absence of over six months cost an NRI his franchise. But exercising the voting rights without taking a few days off work is still a dream for Indian expats. Countries such as the Philippines facilitate voting for their expats in respective embassies. A total of 15,695 (35.02 percent) Filipinos exercised their voting at Doha’s Philippine Embassy on May 9 under the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) system. But any move in that direction is highly unlikely In India given the size of diasporas and technical feasibility. According to news reports, the outgoing Kerala government was keen to provide online voting rights to non-resident Keralites (NRK) in local body polls last year, but opposition CPI-M asked the regime not to take a hasty decision on the matter. CPI-M Kerala secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had also demanded a fool-proof mechanism.
The Peninsula
