Compulsory voting an ideal situation: Moily

May 1, 2010: The Indian Express

Union Law Minister M Veerappa Moily on Friday said ¶it’s an ideal situation to have compulsory voting¶ — the idea recently mooted by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for local bodies elections in the state.

¶I think it’s an ideal situation to have compulsory voting; there is no doubt about it. All of us should ultimately graduate ourselves into that kind of a domain where every citizen of this country should exercise his vote,¶ Moily said while replying to a Private Member’s Bill on compulsory voting, moved by the Congress’s Jai Prakash Agarwal.

In his inconclusive reply, the Law Minister added that ¶India needed to graduate to a level where everyone casts vote and nurture democracy¶.

The idea of compulsory voting got a ¶thumbs up¶ from MPs as well, with some of them stressing incentives to increase voter percentage and others slamming the punitive measures provided in the Bill.

Congress’s Lal Singh (Udhampur) said compulsory voting should be made ¶a must for the rich and the qualified¶. Another Congress MP, Badruddin Ajmal, voiced similar concern. The BSP’s Gorakhnath Pandey said the Bill had his ¶purjor samarthan¶ (full support). Another BSP MP, Vijay Bahadur Singh (Hamirpur in UP), said ¶it would have been better if the Bill had been introduced by the UPA government, instead of it being a Private Member’s Bill¶. ¶The Bill has my unequivocal support… If we make voting compulsory, issues like caste and religion would become irrelevant in elections,¶ he added. The AIADMK’s S Semmalai, too, supported the Bill.

Some of the MPs, however, stressed corrective measures. While the Congress’s Rajaram Pal (Akbarpur) said incentives should be mooted to increase voter turnout, his party colleague Vinay Kumar Pandey slammed the punitive measures enshrined in the Bill, saying ¶compulsory voting should be seen more as a responsibility¶.

BJP MP Arjun Meghwal (Bikaner), too, favoured introduction of incentives for larger turnout.