One of the many flaws of our democracy is that the voters have limited options. All the candidates are selected by their respective political parties, on the basis of so-called “winnability” formula, and then, the voters are asked to elect one of them. Therefore, sometimes the voters may not have a choice but to vote in a criminal or a corrupt person. This is reflected in a large number of criminals and corrupt getting into the assemblies and Lok Sabha after every round of elections.

Simply by providing a “none of the above” option in the EVMs, the voters can be given a choice, a choice to reject all the candidates in fray. If such negative votes out-number those in favour of the leading candidate, then the election would be countermanded and the candidates would be debarred from contesting elections in future.

The assumption is that once this right to reject is exercised, the political parties will be forced to take the voters’ preferences into consideration while fielding candidates.

Do you agree with this assumption?