Hyderabad: The Forum for Good Governance on Tuesday appealed to the State Election Commission to treat NOTA as a fictional electoral candidate in the ensuing gram panchayat polls to avoid auctioning of the sarpanch posts, a practice that has been gaining ground defeating the very purpose of holding polls to the local bodies.
Addressing a news conference, V Nagi Reddy, retired IAS officer and former State Election Commissioner said that many state election commissions had issued orders empowering NOTA.
Telangana State Election Commission should also consider issuing similar orders, he stressed. M Padmanabha Reddy, President of the Forum stated that NOTA should be treated as a fictional candidate making the withdrawals of all candidates in favour of one impossible. This practice was being adopted by the contestants to facilitate auctioning of the sarpanch posts.
He stressed the need to make elections pure, free, fair and transparent. Calling for steps to improve further the utility of NOTA to ensure free and fair elections to the gram panchayats, he appealed to the State Election Commission to issue suitable orders on the lines of the orders issued by the Haryana State Election Commission.
Soma Srinivas Reddy, Secretary of the Forum stressed the need for giving teeth NOTA to avoid manipulations in the electoral process.
“None of the above”, also known as the “against all” or a what can be called a”scratch” vote, is actually a ballot option whidc is designed to allow the voter to indicate their disapproval of all the candidates in that election.
