The Supreme Court on April 26 asked the Election Commission of India to respond to a plea seeking fresh elections to constituencies where NOTA (none of the above) wins majority votes.
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“We will issue notice. Let us see what the Election Commission has to say on this plea,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud told petitioner-author Shiv Khera, represented by senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocates Shweta Mazumdar, Zeeshan Diwan and Jhanvi Dubey.
The petition urged the court to direct the Election Commission (EC) to frame rules stating that candidates who poll fewer votes than NOTA should stand debarred from contesting elections for five years.
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The Election Commission and various State Election Commissions had introduced NOTA in electronic voting machines (EVMs) in November 2013.
The impetus for the move was provided by a Supreme Court ruling the same year, directing the EC to provide NOTA in EVMs.
“A provision of negative voting would be in the interest of promoting democracy as it would send clear signals to political parties and their candidates as to what the electorate thinks about them,” the court had reasoned in 2013.
From 2018 onwards, several States like Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and Puducherry began to treat NOTA as a “fictional electoral candidate” while declaring poll results.
In Maharashtra, fresh elections would be called if NOTA won maximum votes.
“These State Election Commissions declared that if NOTA emerged as the winner in any election, there would be a mandatory re-poll. They categorically held that declaring the second highest candidate as winner (in case NOTA gets the highest votes), violates the underlying principle and object of NOTA,” the petition pointed out.
However, the petition said the rules of these four States should be uniformly applied across the country.
The NOTA choice was given to voters to convey their displeasure about the choice of candidates. Declaring the runner-up as the winner by brushing aside the identity of NOTA as a fictional electoral candidate defeats the very purpose of its existence.
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“Since 2013, the implementation of NOTA has not fulfilled its purpose. On the contrary, it has neither led to increased voter participation nor has compelled political parties to field good candidates,” the petition said.
Election results do not even reflect the negative votes cast.
The petition said the current uneven implementation of NOTA during polls fails to “honour and respect the majority will/opinion of the people expressed through NOTA”.
Published - April 26, 2024 02:11 pm IST
