Why is there no NOTA option in a single candidate election? What did the central government say on the Supreme Court's question?

News Topical, Digital Desk : During elections, if only one candidate is contesting on a seat, the Election Commission declares him the unopposed winner and then elections are not held on that seat. However, now the Supreme Court has raised questions on this process of the Election Commission.

While hearing the case, a bench of 3 judges in the Supreme Court, Justice Suryakant, Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N Koteshwar Singh said that why the voters are not given the option of NOTA (none of the above) in unopposed elections? On this, the government says that NOTA cannot be given the status of a candidate.

Petition filed in SC

Actually, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court regarding this. In the petition, Section 53(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1961 was challenged. Under this, if only one candidate is contesting on a seat, then he can be declared the winner unopposed without voting.

SC asked the question

During the hearing on the petition, the Supreme Court said that before voting NOTA, there should be serious resentment towards a candidate. In response to this, the Election Commission says that if there is deep resentment towards a candidate, then people can also field an independent candidate.

At the same time, the Central Government, while filing the reply in the Supreme Court, said-

NOTA cannot be given equal status to any candidate nor is it considered under the Representation of the People Act, 1951. NOTA is merely an option that does not fit the definition of a candidate.

The central government replied

According to the Ministry of Law and Justice, the right to vote is a statutory right, not a fundamental right. On the other hand, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said that states have adopted a law according to which re-election is held if NOTA gets more votes than any candidate in local elections. But this rule does not apply in Lok Sabha elections.

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