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No repoll even if majority opt for NOTA: SC

The court junked a petition and said that conducting polls was an expensive exercise

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The Supreme Court observed on Friday that fresh elections cannot be conducted even if the majority of voters opt for None Of The Above (NOTA) voting option. The court junked a petition and said that conducting polls was an expensive exercise.

A bench led by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra further observed that to entertain the plea, the court would have to declare that a candidate should compulsorily get 51 per cent of the votes to be declared winner.

The top court termed the suggestion "unworkable" and said, "we cannot destroy our democracy just like that... holding an election in our country is a very serious and expensive business. Today we cannot say that unless a person gets 51 per cent of votes, he cannot be declared elected."

Justice DY Chandrachud, who was also on the bench along with Justice AM Khanwilkar, observed that if candidate (A) gets 23 per cent votes, (B) gets 22 per cent, (C) gets 21 per cent and NOTA gets 24, why should polls be cancelled when most of the people still voted for favoured candidates.

The order came on a petition filed by advocate Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay who sought direction to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to nullify an election and conduct fresh polls if NOTA gets maximum votes in a constituency.

Sensing an unfavourable order to his petition, Upadhyay then chose to withdraw his plea, which was permitted by the court.

In his plea, Upadhyay had also suggested that the right to reject and elect a new candidate would give power and allow people to express their discontent.

The top court's order is important since several states go to the polls in the next few months, starting with Gujarat in December.

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