New Delhi, December 9
The draft rules for allowing non-resident Indians (NRIs) to vote in Parliamentary and Assembly elections would be ready by the end of this month and the facility might be in place before next year’s assembly polls, Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi said here today.

At a meeting the CEC and the ECs had with Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Overseas Indian Affairs Secretary Didar Singh yesterday it was decided to set up a sub-committee for finalising the draft. “We are looking at the feasibility. The complexities are enormous. We do not want to create confusion and chaos.”

“We are looking at the possibility” of introducing it before the assembly elections in several states, but “no promise,” he said while addressing a press conference along with Law Minister M Veerappa Moily on the proposed electoral reforms. Assembly polls would be due next year in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Tripura. The relevant law for NRI voting was passed in Parliament recently.

Asked about the proposal for making voting compulsory, he said the EC was not “in favour of compulsory voting. It is neither desirable nor feasible. Democracy and compulsion don’t go together.” In the last Lok Sabha elections, about 30 crore people did not vote and taking action against them was not possible just because of the magnitude. The judiciary was already burdened with three crore pending cases.

Rejecting the views that no political party was ready to decriminalise politics by preventing candidates with criminal background from contesting elections, Moily said the proposed seven regional consultations on electoral reforms and the national consultation on April 2 and 3 would turn the “pessimism into optimism” due to public opinion.

The first of the regional consultation would be held in Bhopal on December 12 and the last at Chandigarh on February 5. MPs, MLAs, NGOs and other stakeholders would be invited to these consultations. Moily said he would attend all the regional consultations and the national level meeting.