The Right to Reject- How Does it Work?

The honourable supreme court of India has come to the rescue of our nation once again. Indian politicians & a plenty of them are involved in many scams that have hit the country hard one after another. Be the 2G scam, the commonwealth games scam or the coalgate scam. Also it is a known secret that most of them have stashes of black money deposited in the banks outside the country. All these scams have not only hit the national exchequer hard, but also the price of these scams is paid by the citizens of the country in forms of taxes. Thus the price increases & vicious cycle of inflation!

More than 90% (a conservative estimate) of the politicians be it MLAs, MPs & local corparators are not only involved in scams with kickbacks, but also other serious offences. The apex court of the country in its landmark judgement has now given the voters the right to reject. This means that if the people are not satisfied by the candidates in their constituency, they may simply reject them. The Election Commission of the country has been directed to assign NOTA (none of the above) option with the Electronic Voting Machine for the polls.

This is how it works....

Let us take an example of   4 candidates being fielded by various political parties in a constituency. Let’s say out of 100000 votes, 10000 are for the first candidate, 15000 for the second candidate & 12000 each for third & fourth candidate, where as 51000 voters reject all the candidates, i.e. 51000 voters select the option NOTA (none of the above). Under earlier circumstances, i.e. before this rule was implemented candidate no.2 with 15000 votes would have been declared the clear winner. But after the implementation of this rule, if more than 50% voters have rejected the candidates, all these four candidates in the said example will be rejected. So if all the candidates from a constituency are rejected, there will be a re-election from that constituency. The honourable Supreme Court has given the verdict & the guidelines to implement it will follow in due course of time by the Election commission.

This gives people of the country the right to reject the candidates who the people think are incapable or do not deserve to be elected. The first implementation of this rule will be in the states of Delhi, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh which are due for elections before the Lok-Sabha polls in 2014. The election Commission will have to gear up if this change has to be implemented. Voter education & awareness of this new concept will have to be implemented at a fast pace. Beyond everything else, the people of this country will have to come forward & vote for their future.