This refers to the article, “The power of NOTA and the Indian voter” (January 01) by A Surya Prakash. In December 2001, the Election Commission of India (ECI) recommended statute changes to the Government to enable the provision for negative votes by which a voter could reject all the contestants in the fray. The then Election Commissioner, TS Krishnamurthy highlighted the need to send a “strong message” to the parties and candidates about the people’s attitude to them but to no result. After years of debate in Parliament and litigation in the courts of law, in September 2013, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgement, directed the ECI to provide a ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) button on the electronic voting machines, thus according a negative vote the same sanctity and secrecy as a vote in favour of a particular candidate.
By giving the voters the right to express their disapproval with the kind of candidates put up by the political parties, the court hoped that such a comprehensive electoral reform would widen voter participation and curb impersonation. But the votes recorded against the NOTA button were to have the same fate as the ‘invalid’ votes of the ballot paper era and consequently no role in determining the winner. The winner was still to be elected by the first-past-the-post system. However, the recent Gujarat Assembly election has established the power of NOTA, where despite a seven per cent advantage in terms of popular vote share, NOTA made the contest tight and difficult for the BJP. It is time the ECI fixed a limit beyond which the percentage of NOTA votes would entail re-polling or else the NOTA option will be reduced to being a tool to play spoilsport.