Pune Polls: What Happens When NOTA Gets Most Votes? Here’s What Voters Should Know

As Pune and 28 more municipal corporations across Maharashtra head to the polls tomorrow, voters hold an important role than before. Just as the Maharashtra State Election Commission (MSEC) has granted the ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) the status of ‘fictional candidate’, the move has become a potential game-changer that could disqualify all contesting candidates and mandate a re-election if it secures the highest number of votes.

MSEC has ruled that if NOTA gets the maximum votes in an election, re-elections will be held. The MSEC supervises elections to panchayats and municipalities in Maharashtra. And it has decided that for local body polls in the state, the NOTA option will now be treated as a ‘fictional electoral candidate’.

According to MSEC, none of the contesting candidates will be declared as elected, and fresh elections will be held if NOTA gets the maximum votes. This order will apply to polls and bypolls to all municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats. The decision was introduced after the Supreme Court ordered the Election Commission to introduce a ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) button on all electronic voting machines (EVMs).

Earlier, irrespective of the NOTA votes, the contesting candidate with the highest number of votes was declared a winner. This was the case even if NOTA had garnered more votes than the candidate with the highest votes.

Significance

The SC had remarked that the introduction of NOTA would improve the electoral process through increased voter participation, put compulsion on political parties to field good candidates, and help reflect negative votes in an election result. 

Giving effect to all these, the MSEC's decision would now respect the majority will and opinion of the people. The MSEC's move also speaks for the true spirit of decentralisation of power down to the third tier.

The Maharashtra State Election Commission has brought in some key electoral reforms in the last few years, as follows:

- It is the first one to go fully digital in the filing of nomination papers and affidavits of all candidates.

- This has eliminated most errors and enabled instant dissemination of information to the voters.

- MSEC is the first one to disqualify an elected representative for failure to comply with expense disclosure rules.

- It is also the first SEC in the country to cancel registration of more than 250 political parties for failure to submit audited accounts in time.