People should be empowered to use 'None to Vote' option

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MADHU AGRAWAL

12 April, 2011

It is time that Indian political system empowers the voters by making it easy for people to reject the candidates using the 'none to vote' option. The EVMs should have a button to allow the people to easily use this option.

IN MAKING a justified call for putting a button compulsorily on all Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to allow the ‘None To Vote’ option, social activist Anna Hazare has endorsed the idea already mooted by present Chief Election Commissioner SM Qureshi.

The present cumbersome method to exercise such a right already available under article 49(O) is not known even to most poll-officers posted at polling-booths. Moreover, presently the use of ‘None to vote’ option through 49(O) is not a secret as it is specifically to be mentioned on poll-registers by the poll-officers on duty.

At a time, when people have lost faith in political community in general, a button on EVMs compulsorily for ‘None To Vote’ is need of the time. It is unfair that a voter may be forced to select a candidate even if he or she does not want to vote for any one of them.

The None to Vote option will empower the voters to reject candidates, who are involved in corruption, nepotism, crime and similar such deeds, which have pushed the Indian democracy into an abyss. The time has come for the system to empower the common man, so that they can support honest politicians and reject the misfits.