NOTA : Lion Without Teeth

NOTA is recently introduced by the election commission in the electronic voting machines to gave the voter the right to register a negative opinion. It means that the voter does not want to vote for any of the candidate. But the new provision does not mean that all candidates in a constituency get rejected if NOTA votes are the highest.

Let understand this with an example, if there are 100000 votes casted and NOTA get 65000, candidate A get 20000, candidate B get 10000 and candidate C get 5000. In this scenario, candidate A is the winner. It means the 65000 votes casted in the favor of NOTA are treated as invalid votes. It is same situation if 65000 does not casts their vote. That means NOTA is never being the winner and does not encourage the political parties to get away with the candidates having criminal background.

How NOTA should work?
Let’s consider again the above example. If NOTA get the highest number of votes then all the candidates will be disqualified and banned for contesting any kind of election throughout their life. Their surety will be seized.

If the candidates are not independent and belong to some party then a penalty should be put on all the parties for providing the tickets to such candidates. Apart from that there is also a provision to degrade the party status. A national party should be degrade to a state party and a state party recognition should be forfeited.

NOTA shouldn’t be the lion without teeth. It should put a check on every political party so that they choose only good and honest candidates.