In response to the letter 'Right to Reject' by Subhash Chandra Agarwal

I. Mallikarjuna Sharma

It is inevitable in the first-past-the-post election system that the winning candidate may often poll less than 50% of all the polled votes and in many/some instances even less than 40-25%. So only, left parties have been campaigning for the introduction of proportional representation system either fully or in part [along with the fpp system - say on 50-50 basis]. While the NOTA [rejection] vote recording is a newly introduced good practice, the insistence that those who get less than the NOTA votes should be barred from contest for life time is ridiculous, to say the least. I have seen many candidates who lost even deposits in one election, repeatedly trying and then winning with slender or handsome margins in the next elections. That opportunity should not be taken away. In my childhood, one day I saw a person - his name was some Sarma or Shastri - being garlanded and paraded on an elephant jubilantly after an election [in Kurnool]. To my curious enquiries, it was revealed that that person was a good gentleman, but lost repeatedly in several elections and so began to make public declarations during his campaign that if he were to be defeated this time also, he had no alternative but to commit suicide; and the sympathetic public generously voted for him and rewarded him with victory!

Nov 23 2014

I. Mallikarjuna Sharma collective may be contacted at mksharma55@gmail.com

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