Lok Sabha members pitch for compulsory voting

NEW DELHI: Cutting across party lines, members in Lok Sabha today favoured making voting compulsory to strengthen democracy in the country.

"Voting cannot be left to the will of the people. Everyone must participate in the electoral process," said Vinod Kumar Sonkar (BJP).

He was speaking on a private member's bill on Compulsory Voting moved by Janardan Singh 'Sigriwal' of BJP.

"A person can always press NOTA button if he does not like any of the candidates...but he must vote," Sonkar said.

Expressing similar opinion, K Kavitha of TRS said voters must be inspired to exercise his or her right to vote.

At the same time, she added, political parties should also be held accountable for their failure to fulfil elecrtoral promises.

Dushyant Chautala (INLD), while favouring compulsory voting, made a case for introduction of bio-metric cards to check bogus voting.

He said the provision of bogus voting should be accompanied by a 'right to recall' under which voters could have the option to recall elected representatives for failure to meet aspirations of the voters.

There should also be a provision for online voting and mobile voting to help aged and persons living at distant locations to exercise their franchise, he said.

C R Chaudhary (BJP) regretted that only 50-60 per cent of electorates exercise their votes and demanded that it should be made compulsory.

The voting has been made compulsory in as many as 22 countries and the same can be tried in India, he added.

The others who participated in the discussion were Jay Prakash Narayan (RJD), Ramesh Bidhuri (BJP), Chandrakant Khaire (Shiv Sena), T G V Babu (AIADMK), Nanabhau Patole (BJP), Shankar Prasad Datta (CPI-M), Sarad Tripathi (BJP) and Majoj Rajoria (both BJP).