The 2013 Assembly Elections in five states saw the debut of the NOTA
(short for the None of the Above) option that enables voters to reject
all the candidates in the fray in a particular constituency.
While the Supreme Court itself primarily focused on secrecy (which the
earlier 49-O process compromised on as it required voters to record
their decision not to vote) when calling for the introduction of NOTA,
it is NOTA as a tool of political dissent that seems to have captured
voters’ imagination.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the Nilgiris
constituency where NOTA votes totalled 46,559 (about 5% of the total
votes polled) in the 2014 Parliamentary Elections.
But parties that are challenging the political status quo marked by a
see-saw battle between the two Dravidian majors – AIADMK and DMK – are
desperately trying to woo these “politically disenchanted”
NOTA voters,
who, they hope, would endorse their claim of being the change that
everyone wants to see.
Over 60 lakh NOTA votes were polled in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, accounting for about 1.1 per cent of the total votes cast.
Source: Election Commission of India
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