The government on Tuesday stated that it had no plans to frame a law making voting compulsory. Union law and justice minister M. Veerappa Moily stated in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha that the government was not contemplating a law on the subject. “The issue was considered by the Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral
Reforms in 1990. But the measure was, however, not favoured because of the practical difficulties involved in its implementation,” he said in his written reply. The law minister stated that the government has not received any proposal from the state governments on making voting compulsory.
Recently, Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla had said that compulsory voting was “not practical”. “Suppose 200 million people did not vote, is it possible to file a case against each of them,” he had asked. There were many people working in unorganised sector who could not come to vote, the CEC added. Stating that people would have to involve themselves in the democratic process, Mr Chawla had said Parliament or Assemblies would have to debate such issues and enact laws. “It is the choice of Parliament. We have no machinery that would help make everybody vote,” he had said. Recently, the Gujarat government’s bill to make voting compulsory in local bodies elections had run into rough weather. State governor Kamla Beniwal is believed to have raised objections to some provisions of the bill.