626 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
shall also be deemed to be the constituency of the wives. Consequently it is necessary to make a provision for voting by postal ballot with regard to the wives also.
Shri R. K. Chaudhuri: If the wife is here in India ?
Dr. Ambedkar: If the wife is here, that will be the constituency, because she will be entered in the electoral roll independently of the provisions contained in section 20 of the Act.
Suppose she is outside and her husband selects a particular constituency. If the husband has a right to vote by ballot, obviously the wife must be given the same right and I do not see any reason why my hon. friend Mr. Chaudhuri got so excited over such a simple proposition.
Shri R. K. Chaudhari: Supposing the wife is employed ? Will the husband get the same privilege?
Dr. Ambedkar: That is a contingency that may arise.
Now, I am coming to the question of detenus. Personally, I do not mind saying that I have a great deal of sympathy with the proposition that no person in India who has got the right to vote should not be free to vote. But I would like the House to consider what actually we could do in order to ensure that the detenus will be able to vote. There are three possible ways of doing it. One is this that we have to set up a polling station in each jail so that all persons who are placed in that particular jail may have the right to vote and to constitute the Jailor either the Returning Officer or the Presiding Officer or the Polling Officer. That is one way of doing it. The second way is that we should allow the detenus to be taken to the general polling booth, undoubtedly accompanied by police and probably handcuffed and taken out of the jail walking two or three miles. And the third way would be by the postal ballot. Obviously it would be very difficult in my judgment to constitute a polling station in each jail, because there may be in some jail quite a large number of detenus, in some other jail there may be one or two, in some there may be none.
The Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs (Shri Satya Narayan Sinha): It will be possible.