Gujarat BJP workers fear making voting compulsory may backfire, Dilip Sanghani feels such experiments are needed

GANDHINAGAR: While the state government gears up to notify the law making voting in the forthcoming local body election compulsory, many within the ruling party feel that the move may backfire electorally.

“Though this a constitutional responsibility of every Indian, making voting mandatory is not going down well with the people, particularly the middle class,” said a BJP veteran on condition of anonymity. “If you push them out to vote, they in all likelihood are going to vote against you,” he cautioned.

“The idea of compulsory voting had come from the notion that big voter turnout had traditionally been good for BJP,” admitted another senior party functionary.

“Also there is a similar notion that the Muslims community which normally doesn’t back BJP vote en-mass while the BJP voters are not so enthusiastic about voting led to the idea being floated and left in the air. However now bringing it down to the level of implementation may not be such a good idea for the party as to begin with this notion of compulsion is less than likely to be endorsed by the voters on one hand and on the other it would be the local issues and anti-incumbency factors that would largely dominate the civic body polls,” he added.

Not everyone in the party however are of this opinion. Dilip Sanghani, BJP strongman from the Saurashtra region feels that in a democracy such experiments need to be carried out. “No one does these experiments, it is only in Gujarat such experiments are done,” Sanghani told ET.