Right to cast a negative vote?
On January 28, 2009, the Supreme Court of India, with regard to a PIL filed by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, asked the government why the right to vote should not include “right to not to vote”. I wrote about it here.
The Constitution of India makes allowance for a candidate to do a 49-0. In other words, a voter may go to a polling booth and declare in writing that he refuses to vote for any of the available candidates. The clause goes thus:
49-O: Elector deciding not to vote. – If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.
Today, on February 24, the Supreme Court referred the matter to a larger bench for consideration as it involved some key questions related to constitutional law.
A two-judge bench of Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvi felt that the issue needed to be adjudicated by a larger bench as there were certain ‘doubts’ over the interpretation of the ruling passed by a Constitution bench in the Kuldip Nayar Vs Union of India case relating to a voter’s right.
The Constitution bench, while rejecting an argument that the right to vote is a constitutional right, had observed, “It is clear that a fine distinction was drawn between the right to vote and the freedom of voting as a species of freedom of expression, while reiterating the view in Jyoti Basi Vs Debi Ghosal that a right to elect, fundamental though it is to democracy, is neither a fundamental right nor a common law right but pure and simple a statutory right.”
I believe that the right to cast a negative vote, if it comes through, will be a powerful agent of change. Often, the Indian voter is faced with the choice between a criminal and a criminal. That is no choice at all. Here’s hoping for the decriminalisation of Indian politics.
Great news. I do not want to vote for lesser of the two evils. Why cant we have a few genuine leaders in a country of over 1 billion people?
SC is our only hope. Hope we some progress on it. Though it seems impossible that a negative vote can come into play in upcoming LS elections,but lets hope for the next time.
Vijayendra Mohanty Reply:
February 24th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Yes. Hope is the key concept here.
k m iyer Reply:
March 8th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
after the last general election, a congress MP arrogantly (nothing new) remarked that his party does not need educated votes,. in fact this trend has been catching up with politicos where they make a beeline to the slums to canvas(buy) votes – the price depending upon how desparate the candidate is: from a bottle of country liquor to saris dhotis color tvs at the cost of the exchequer to plain hard cash from rs 500 per person to rs 1500/- when these hoodlums buy and sell a part of the country, the educated guess of not wanting to vote will be only music to ears. shouldn’t we rethink on this strategy? there wont be any earth shaking changes to the deceptions of the spineless election commission or the political parties by our expressing our desire not to elect ! this right should have a rider: that if X number of people from one constituency express such desire, the election should be countermanded and the existing contestants barried to contest from this or any other constituency for X number of years. then only we shall have real change or real democracy, otherwise one exit visa to either Bangladesh or to Somalia is a much better choice.
Mayank
24 Feb 09 at 1:25 am
But what if the negative vote has the majority?? I mean if maximum number of people will cast negative votes then who will win? I guess the laws should be more stringent while allowing candidates to stand for elections.I still remember i had read in civics when i was 8th or 9th standard – ” a member of parliament cannot have a criminal background”. God knows what happened to that!
aamod
24 Feb 09 at 12:30 pm
We as the largest democracy in the world should have -ve voting right.
Two prominant benifits r there.
1) Lesser chances of fake voting in place of people who r reluctant to vote bcoz of lessworthy candidates.
2) If more than 50% voters caste -ve vote, candidature should be changed.
This will give true picture of democracy.
Jayant
9 Mar 09 at 10:50 am
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17 Apr 09 at 7:17 am
Since we don’t have to a negative voting system yet, I chose to refuse to vote via 49-O. I know it has no relevance from an electoral point of view, but it is better than not voting at all.
Arby K
17 Apr 09 at 8:02 am