Click to play videoMumbai: On the day his constituency went to vote, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani sparked off a debate with two radical ideas – making voting compulsory and fixing the terms of the Lok Sabha and assembly elections so that even if a government loses majority, it is allowed to complete its term.
Advani said, “Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections should be simultaneously and we should ask the election commission whether we can make voting compulsory in India.”
Though neither of these ideas are exactly new, they are being seen as Advani projecting himself as a patriarch who can think and act at a national level to take the space of statesman vacated by Vajpayee, but they also reflect Advani's fear of a fractured mandate that could lead to an unstable government.
The test of Advani's suggestions are in their practicality something other political parties point out.
Left’s Sitaram Yechury said, “A fixed term means what? You need not be accountable. But you are arguing in terms of accountability versus stability, and I think this matter was settled in our constituent assembly, it should remain so. What is of supreme importance for the country is accountability."
Congress’ Ashwini Kumar said, “This is a suggestion that can only be brought about if there is a constitutional amendment.”
However, there's one suggestion of Advani's though that will be readily agreed to by all – polling in February when the weather is much better and which will also let the BJP's core urban middle class voter come to the polling booth.
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