Voting for the 18th Lok Sabha elections is to be held in the country in the coming months. According to the information, this time 1.8 crore first time voters will cast their votes in the elections. But today we are going to tell you the story of the elections, when everyone in our country did not have the right to vote. Know when everyone got the right to vote in independent India.
right to vote in the country
Today every person in the country has the right to vote. But such a system did not always exist in the country. Let us tell you that in the year 1988, when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister, the Parliament had made the 61st amendment in the Constitution, through which the age for voting in the elections of Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies was reduced from 21 to 18 years. But do you know that before independence, even 21 year olds did not have the right to vote. Let us tell you that this year there are 2.18 lakh voters above 100 years of age. Apart from this, 21.5 crore youth voters are in the age group of 18 to 29 years.
Not everyone had the right to vote
Under pressure from Congress leaders, the British conducted provincial elections under the Government of India Act 1935. But not all people were given the right to vote. Most of the people were deprived of voting rights by imposing various criteria like literacy, caste, land-property and tax payment. At that time barely 14% people had the right to vote.
Apart from this, in 1928, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru to decide the basic points of the Constitution of India. The committee had accepted adult franchise as correct. The sub-committee formed in this regard in the first round table conference also said that it should be implemented. However, the Indian Franchise Committee, which reported in 1932, came to the conclusion that the decision on adult franchise should be left to the states.
The Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee and the Minorities Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly said that adult franchise should be included as a fundamental right in the Indian Constitution. The Advisory Committee on Minorities and Fundamental Rights had accepted this advice as correct. But it was suggested that instead of making it a fundamental right, the issue of adult franchise should be included somewhere else in the Constitution. At the same time, in Article 326 of the Constitution, it was provisioned that elections for Parliament and Legislative Assemblies will be held on the basis of adult franchise. In this way, adult franchise was implemented in independent India from the first elections of 1951-52.
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