COMMENTARY
ramification of this bill on local elec-
Bill for Compulsory Voting
Bhanu Joshi
This article argues that the
Gujarat government’s attempt to
legislate compulsory voting in
local body elections targets the
wrong symptom and gives the
wrong medicine. The dichotomy
of not willing to constitute local
governments on one hand, and
then making voting compulsory
to enhance participation on the
other, is simply absurd and risks
setting a dangerous precedence.
Bhanu Joshi (bhanu@cprindia.org) is a
researcher at the Centre for Policy Research,
New Delhi.
22
W
hen Gujarat prepared to launch
India’s first online voting
system for the Gandhinagar
Municipal Corporation elections in 2010,
a government official had told me in a
jaded voice, “Gujarat will become the
first state in India to implement this. We
are getting inquiries from other states
about how to replicate the system”. The
disinterest in his voice was palpable,
given that he had received many such
visitors like me. After some briefing by
the technical staff, amidst the beeps of
servers, the same official said, “The mid-
dle class doesn’t vote; this is for them.”
As the cliched indelible ink went digital,
the Gujarat government and the State
Election Commission (SEC) were called
upon by the courts, and after a legal
battle, the e-voting system was scaled up
for the entire state.
Compulsory Voting
The Gujarat government will soon be,
again, in the courts to defend the Gujarat
Local Authorities Laws (Amendment)
Bill, 2009 which makes voting for the
rural local bodies like gram panchayats,
zilla parishads, etc, and urban local
bodies such as the municipal corpora-
tions, nagar panchayats, etc, compulso-
ry for its citizens. The Gujarat Assembly
passed the bill in 2009, but it was sent
back by the then Governor Kamla Beni-
wal observing that “forcing voters to
vote is against the principles of individu-
al liberty”. This bill was adopted again
in 2011 but could only receive the gover-
nor’s assent with a change of guard in
the Raj Bhawan.
Essentially, what should have been a
potential issue for discussion around
questions of participation and demo-
cratic trends in the local elections, has
been stretched to debate compulsory
voting in national and state elections.
Notwithstanding the comments made
by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC)
Brahma “that such a provision may not
be correct”, a rational debate on the
december 27, 2014
tions has deluded the topic. The context
of this bill is the local elections and
hence, it is important to highlight how
the bill not only targets the wrong
symptom, but goes on to give the wrong
medicine. The argument for compulsory
voting can broadly be categorised into
two narratives. First is the narrative
that the act of voting is construed as a
proof of democratic participation and
non-voting equals an amorphous non-
interest in democratic values and du-
ties. Second is the oft-raised question
around the “representativeness of the
elected representative”. Simply put, if
an elected leader does not get over 50%
of the votes in their constituency, their
representativeness is in question. By
making voting a compulsory act, the
questions of legitimacy of the elected
representative will never pop up.
An analysis of electoral data in local
elections shows that rural local bodies
have had higher turnouts than their urban
counterparts in almost all states of India.
Data from 2009-13 of city corporation
elections in major cities reveal that the
turnout has been low across states (Fig-
ure 1, p 23). Taking six megacities as a
sample, we find that the turnouts in the
city corporations average around 50%,
while the average turnout for national
elections (1952-2014) has been 60%. It
is, thus, a fact that turnouts in the urban
local body elections are lower than the
elections to national, state and rural
local bodies. The causality of this lower
turnout, however, needs elaboration.
One of the reasons for this low turnout
is the inconsistencies and high error
rates in the electoral rolls of the SEC,
which fail to capture the urban elector-
ates, which is more diverse, mobile,
fragmented and spatially segregated.
This results in mass omissions and com-
missions of names in the electoral rolls.
This is further exacerbated when a
financially-starved and functionally-poor
SEC is tasked to prepare and update the
electoral rolls in the same manner as the
Election Commission of India. The SEC
has not been able to develop a mecha-
nism of sharing the electoral rolls for
conducting local elections. A well-docu-
mented case came from Bengaluru city
vol xlIX no 52 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

Figure 1: Turnout in the Last Election to the Municipal Corporations of Major Cities (%)
70
60
50 45
42
44
40
Turnouts
30
20
10
0
Hyderabad
Bengaluru
Mumbai
Source: Respective State Election Commissions.
corporation elections in 2010, where the
electoral rolls were alleged to have been
inflated with 7 million official voters as
against an expected 5.6 million voters
according to the 2001 Census. It was
argued that, if the latter figure was to be
believed, the actual voter turnout in
Bengaluru could be as high as 55% and
not the reported 40%. Similar senti-
ments were also expressed by various
civil society groups and politicians after
the Mumbai city corporation elections
of 2012.
The second and more intuitive argu-
ment for low turnouts is usually attrib-
uted to “voter apathy” or “middle class
discontentment” – phrases that exemplify
a secession of the urban electorate from
the democratic processes. We need more
understanding around why the urban
voter is disincentivised or sees no value
in voting for local elections while, com-
paratively, turns up in much larger num-
bers for the state and national elections.
A partial answer to this question is im-
bued in the way our urban local govern-
ments have been functioning, resulting
in non-recognition of the local govern-
ments as an institution for policy inter-
vention or an individual grievance re-
dressal in the electorates’ mind.
Principally, the local governments
have not been able to carve out a poli-
tical agenda distinct from the national
and state agendas. Civic issues like
garbage, road maintenance, street lights,
water supply, public health and slum
improvement are never associated with
local bodies because they have been
espoused by the state governments.
Economic & Political Weekly
COMMENTARY
turnout should not come to us as
a surprise.
62 59
58
53
50 Deny Democracy, Force Voting
45
41 42 44 44 The same Gandhinagar, which became
India’s first municipality to have an
e-voting system, was refused a munici-
pality status by the Gujarat government
by denying elections and elected local
government. The Saher Jagrut Nagrik
Parishad filed a petition against the state
in the Gujarat High Court, resulting in or-
Ahmedabad
Chennai
Delhi
Kolkata
Rajkot
Surat
Vadodara
Bhavnagar
Jamnagar
Gandhinagar
ders for municipalisation and immediate
conduct of elections. In this particular
case, the advocate general on behalf of the
state government argued that there was
The states then delegate other impor- no compulsion on the state government
tant municipal functions like city plan- to constitute a corporation and that con-
ning including town planning and land stituting a municipality would unneces-
regulation to parastatal organisations sarily subject its people of local taxes,
like urban development authorities whereas the state government is already
which result into further dilution of the providing for the civic services.
local governance agenda. Most local The presiding judge remarked, “Recog-
governments do not have the financial nition of the popular will of the people
capacity to undertake independent through electoral process promotes consti-
work without formal approvals of their tutionalism, which ensures diffusion of
state governments, reducing them to a powers, necessitates different independent
mere public works department-like centres of decision-making”. The dichoto-
body. Since our mayors are not directly my of not willing to constitute local gov-
elected nor are they provided minimum ernments on the one hand, and then mak-
tenure, the result is a non-persuasive ing compulsory voting to enhance partici-
institution which the urbanite cannot pation on the other, is simply absurd. It
look up to. The result of this unaccount- risks setting dangerous precedence and
able, subserviced, half-hearted local will result in the debate around local gov-
governance being manifested in lower ernments in urban India being ignored.
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