Mumbai: ED says ‘prisoners don’t have voting rights’ on Anil Deshmukh voting plea for Rajya Sabha polls

‘Prisoners do not have voting rights’, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has said in its response filed before a special court on NCP leader and former state home minister Anil Deshmukh’s plea to be released from prison for a day to cast his vote in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls on June 10.

Deshmukh has been in custody in connection with a money laundering case since Nov last year. The agency has said in its response that it is pertinent to mention that prisoners do not have voting rights under the Representation of People Act. It said that the right to vote is a statutory right and being so, is subject to restrictions prescribed under the Act. It also emphasized that Deshmukh is the main accused in the case and is currently in judicial custody and his application is liable to be rejected at the very threshold.

The former minister had filed an application last Friday and stated in it that he is an elected member of the legislative assembly of the state, an MLA from Katol constituency of Nagpur. “The applicant is desirous to exercise his franchise and cast his vote in the aforesaid Rajya Sabha elections,” his plea had said. He sought a single-day’s release on a bond. In the alternative, he had sought that he be escorted to the Vidhan Bhavan on June 10 for casting his vote and had offered that he could pay the escort charges for the same.