The exercise of the None Of The Above (NOTA) option in the general elections of India doesn't speak positively about it. Had our democracy produced candidates of credibility, there would have been no necessity for the NOTA option. Imagine, whether we had required NOTA while casting our ballots when a galaxy of luminaries had lit up our political system in the days after Independence.
But today, we are feeling compelled to use it in mass elections to show that we reject the options that we have as the potential leaders. The number of voters going for the NOTA option in elections is not ignorable which gives the message that our political system needs a cleaning up to make space for more capable and acceptable candidates.
In direct elections, NOTA thus makes a statement on behalf of the disgruntled voters. If we don't have a good option, we don't care for the bad option either.
But the very essence of NOTA undergoes a complete change when it is applied in the Rajya Sabha election which is an indirect one. When the elected representatives of the people vote themselves to elect a member, it no longer remains an issue restricted to the popular democracy and political interests take over.
Allowing a NOTA in such elections create ample chance of manipulation and that is why both the Congress and the BJP have expressed reservations over the use of NOTA in the Rajya Sabha elections, the former being more vocal than the latter because of obvious reasons.
NOTA could decimate Congress in Rajya Sabha elections
The use of NOTA in the Gujarat Rajya Sabha election on August 8 makes things look ominous for the Congress. Its number of MLAs has dwindled and it has struggled to safeguard the minimum number of legislators to ensure that Ahmed Patel, an important leader in its ranks, to win the election. The application of the NOTA could see Patel losing, thanks to the dissident Congress voters whose cause would be facilitated by the NOTA and the party still unable to take any step against their rebellion.
The Supreme Court has rightly pointed out as to why the Congress is objecting against NOTA now when the thing had seen the light of the day over three year and half years ago. It is certainly a valid question. The grand old party is speaking against it today because its survival is being threatened and if it had really thought that NOTA is not an ideal case for an indirect election, it would have made the point long ago and not in the eleventh hour before an election.
The Congress has issued the whip which asks its members to vote as per the party's line but with NOTA coming into effect, that could be neutralised.
NOTA in indirect elections more a tool for manipulation?
Putting aside the political class's inefficiency in addressing the issue in a more substantial way, it is important for the experts to consider how much effective can NOTA be in serving the interests of the democracy in an indirect election. In the direct election, it has attained a noble dimension by allowing the voter an extra power to reject candidates, if required all of them, but in the indirect election, it could turn into a weapon of ugly manipulation. In our system where parties rule supreme, could the arrangement hold to ransom the very idea of democracy?
