There appears to be a paradigm shift in the CPI Maoists’ stance on voting. If a couple of hand written posters purported to be of the banned organisation are to be believed then the Maoists have asked the voters to press NOTA (none of the above) button of the EVM while voting. Polling slated to take place at Palamau on April 10.
Police sources have confirmed the seizure of such posters in Palamau’s interiors wherein the Maoist outfit has passed such strictures in an apparent move to frighten the voters. The tone of Maoists on poll remains the same what it was in the year 1995 when in Palamau the then CPI Ml Party Unity and then MCC had given a poll boycott call.
Police sources said this has become almost a ritual now. Poll boycott call is taken by the voters as a kind of routine warning by the naxals. Maoists have now given freedom to a voter to at least reach the polling booth but with a rider to press NOTA button there. The button in the EVMs is going to figure for the first time for the voters of the country in general elections.
Sources said this shift in the stand of the Maoists is not without ulterior move. By calling for NOTA button pressing the Maoists have played a big lever to exert more pressure of yielding candidates to toe their line of the Maoists in terms of the premium.
At a place like Daltonganj where film posters are more visible than anything else the Maoists may be given credit to make NOTA a household word. Moreover, what would be the outcome of such calls is yet to be seen.