If you feel no political party or candidate deserves your vote, you can choose not to choose any of them. The NOTA (None Of The Above) button on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) allows you the right to exercise this choice.
In 1961, the Conduct of Election Rules provided the voter with a right to refuse to vote. However, it required the voters to identify themselves to the polling officer, who would make appropriate entries in the electoral register; it was a cumbersome process and did not protect the secrecy of the negative ballot. In 2001, the Election Commission of India (EC), under the Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh, submitted a proposal to allow the voter a right to a negative vote. His successors – T S Krishna Murthy and S Y Qureshi – also supported this proposal.
In due course, public interest groups, activists and civil society organisations started campaigning for voters’ choice not to support any of the candidates that the political parties fielded. The Peoples Union For Civil Liberties (PUCL), a human rights group, filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court seeking a right to a negative vote.
Based on the PIL, in September 2013, the Apex Court passed a landmark judgement that allowed voters the option to reject all the candidates standing for election in their constituency, becoming the fourteenth country in the world to institute negative voting. It also directed the EC to include the NOTA option on all the EVMs in the country.
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