Bill for Compulsory Voting

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 . 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.