Dr. Ranjit Singh: Election or Rejection

Dr. Ranjit Singh: Election or Rejection: Last week in an old news paper, I was just glancing. Suddenly, my eyes stuck on the election results. The party which came to the power hav...

Right to Reject: A Constitutional Problem

Although in my last posting I have advocated for the right to reject. But now I would like to deviate from my earlier stand. I am worried that if this right is given to the Indian citizens then in one way it is beneficial to reject the candidates who are not suitable for the post.  There are several forces and some sections in the country those who are not willing to be the part of Indian Union. Now whenever, government have to prove the unity of the nation and it has to present a picture at the international front that all its member states and citizens are willing to be the part of Indian Union, it shows the polling rate in the country or in a particular region. This is regularly done in the context of Jammu and Kashmir or Some North Eastern states. Very often this became the headlines of the news that prime minister has said that people of a region have shown their faith in the Indian Constitution by casting their vote in the recent election.

But If this right to reject is given with a provision of “None of the Above” button in the voting machine, then can we imagine a scenario if the people of a region have rejected all of them and this rejection may not be to choose a better candidate but to show their disagreement towards the Indian Constitution and democracy. It will create a constitutional problem and then it will be threat to the country using the constitutional weapon of right to reject.

But if against each candidate instead of one button to select there are two button; one to select and one to reject just like ‘like’ and ‘unlike’ buttons in the facebook, the voters have the option to either elect one person by casting his/her vote in favour of one candidate or the same vote he/she can use to reject some candidate. If this is done then the aforementioned constitutional problem can be avoided and the problems of the current system will also be solved.

In this system, the candidate who will receive maximum number of votes to be selected will be declared as winner provided the number of votes rejecting him/her is lesser then the previous one. But in case a candidate who has received highest votes in his/her favour but the number of votes casted in his rejection is even more then that then the entire election should be cancelled and there will be the need for the fresh election.

This can be started on a trial basis at the Panchayat and municipality level elections and later on with certain modifications it should be implemented at all level.