It's the biggest election in history. Here's why few Indians in Canada will take part

OTTAWA — Parmod Chhabra is deeply invested in the Indian general election that gets underway on Friday, with almost a billion people eligible to vote, but he won't be casting a ballot.The reasons are simple. India requires overseas citizens to travel back to their home electorates to vote in person on polling day. There is no option for postal or electronic voting for the general overseas population, and people like Chhabra lose eligibility because they also have foreign citizenship.

"It's simply the largest kind of exercise in voting that humanity has ever seen," said Vina Nadjibulla, the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada vice-president of research."It's a type of election that the world really hasn't seen before." In comparison, the Philippines — another democratic country with a large overseas diaspora — reported more than 432,000 overseas votes in its 2016 presidential election, with close to 1.4 million registered as eligible. Registered Filipinos overseas can vote by mail or at consulates and embassies around the world.

"They requested us to forward the same to the High Commissioner," Khan said about the desire for many Indian citizens wishing to vote without travelling to India."We suggested they should be voting in the Indian election … People very much want to get involved, but they couldn't."

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