NOTA in polls: As Bhupesh Baghel says scrap it, a look at its 10-year run

The NOTA option was introduced in 2013 by a Supreme Court directive based on a 2004 public interest litigation filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties. Four of the five states headed to polls next month became the first to see a NOTA option in any election, bringing it in with the 2013 polls (Telangana was not a state at the time).

The 2014 Lok Sabha polls later became the first national elections with the NOTA option.

Before NOTA, voters could register their decision of not choosing any candidate under Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. But this meant that the secrecy of the voter could not be maintained.

The Supreme Court hoped that a NOTA or negative vote would “encourage political participation” and also persuade parties to consider their candidate choices more carefully.

“Negative voting will lead to a systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates. If the right to vote is a statutory right, then the right to reject a candidate is a fundamental right of speech and expression under the Constitution,” said the Bench led by then Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam, which gave the order.

NOTA in application

However, critics feel NOTA hasn’t necessarily resulted in “systemic” changes, owing to its inherent features. First, NOTA votes are counted as ‘invalid’ and hence do not contribute towards the result. Second, there is no provision for re-polling if NOTA polls the most votes in a constituency.

Parties, including the BJP and Aam Aadmi Party, had welcomed the introduction of NOTA, and former Deputy PM L K Advani had argued further for mandatory voting, saying that not voting was merely an extension of a negative vote. “Voters who without any legitimate justification have not been exercising the valuable right of franchise… have, unwittingly thus, been casting a negative vote against all the contesting candidates without intending to do so… I hold, therefore, that a negative vote would become really meaningful if it is accompanied also by the introduction of mandatory voting,” Advani wrote in a blog post at the time.

The CPI(M) was among those that said it did not see the purpose of NOTA.

In 2015, NOTA was given its EVM symbol of black cross on a ballot paper. Some states went on to introduce NOTA reforms, but only in the local elections it could govern – in 2018, Maharashtra deemed an election invalid if NOTA received the most votes in panchayat or municipal polls. The State Election Commission said it would call for a fresh election with new candidates in such cases.

Haryana introduced a similar provision. Delhi introduced re-polling in such instances last year.

In March 2021, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition seeking that election results be nullified and fresh polls held if NOTA secures maximum votes.

NOTA in poll-bound states

In the five states going to polls next month, there were 15.19 lakh NOTA votes in the 2018 Assembly elections, amounting to 1.4% of the total valid votes. The most share of NOTA votes were in Chhattisgarh, where four seats saw NOTA poll more than 5% of the votes, including Dantewada (8.74%), Chitrakot (7.36%), Bijapur (5.98%) and Narayanpur (5.18%).

NOTA votes in 2018 Assembly polls

In Rajasthan, Kushalgarh saw NOTA get 5.56% of the vote, while in Madhya Pradesh NOTA got the highest vote share in Bhainsdehi at 3.96%.

The NOTA vote share exceeded 3% in just one seat in Telangana – in Wardhannapet at 3.1%. In Mizoram, two seats saw NOTA receive more than 1% of the vote – Hachhek (1.34%) and Tuichawng (1.12%).

It was when asked about the fact that 2.82 lakh votes cast in Chhattisgarh last time were NOTA that Baghel said: “The Election Commission should take its cognisance. Many times it has been seen that NOTA polled more votes than the margin of victory and loss.” According to him, sometimes voters were confused and also hit the NOTA button thinking they had to click “one at the top or the bottom”. “So NOTA should be scrapped.”

NOTA at national level

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there were 65.23 lakh NOTA votes, which is 1.07% of the total valid votes.

NOTA votes in Lok Sabha elections

Among the NOTA votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the highest i.e., 51,660 were cast in Gopalganj (SC) constituency in Bihar, and the lowest, 100, were in Lakshadweep, as per an Association of Democratic Reforms report.

States with the highest NOTA vote share in 2019 LS polls

In August 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the NOTA option cannot be made available in the Rajya Sabha elections. The top court, while hearing the petition of Gujarat Congress leader Shailesh Manubhai Parmar, pointed out that the rule in Upper House polls was, in a sense, an open ballot and the members by not transferring their excess vote to the next member would be violating the contract between parties. “If he doesn’t vote, party will expel him. But by making option of NOTA, you are legitimising his action,” said Justice D Y Chandrachud (the current Chief Justice).

At least a dozen other countries have a NOTA or negative vote option, from France and Spain in Europe to Brazil and some states in the United States. In the neighbourhood, Bangladesh has a NOTA option as did Pakistan in 2013, after which it was discontinued.