New Delhi, Dec 21 (IANS) Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla Monday said there were difficulties in making voting compulsory in the country due to the huge size of the electorate.
Participating in a question-answer session after delivering a lecture on “Electoral Democracy in India” at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), he said there were 750 million voters in the country and another 30 million would be added to the electorate in January 2010.

“If you were in my place, how would you enforce (compulsory voting) if 250 million people did not come to vote?” he asked of the person who wanted the Election Commission to make voting compulsory as Gujarat had done for local body elections.

Later, answering queries from media persons, Chawla said that Gujarat’s concerns state polls and “had a completely different institutional body”.

He said it was for parliament to pass any legislation on compulsory voting for the Lok Sabha and assembly elections and the matter was not in the domain of the Election Commission.

Chawla declined to comment when asked for his views on compulsory voting. “I am not answering that,” he said.

The Gujarat assembly Saturday adopted a bill making voting compulsory in elections to all local bodies in the state, which Chief Minister Narendra Modi termed it a “historic move to strengthen democracy”.