India gives mixed opinion over SC ruling on 'right to reject'

People across the country gave mixed reaction to the Supreme Court verdict that gave the citizens of India the right to reject candidates in elections.

Pradeep Deshmukh, a resident of Bhopal, welcomed the order of the apex court and called it 'historic'.

"This is a historic order and this would strengthen people's confidence in democracy. The Supreme Court has given this great right to the people and if people don't like any candidate they can now reject that candidate or all of them," he said

In Bihar's Patna city, the people called for a separate button on the EVM machines to reject all candidates.

"In a healthy democracy if a candidate of any particular party is not acceptable to the voter as he will not serve the people, then the voter should know that he can reject this candidate by pushing this one button on the voting machine," said Lal Sahib Singh, a resident.

Residents of Uttar Pradesh, however, felt that the option to reject will not be very useful.

"Yes, this is a welcome decision. But I don't think this will bring in any major change. People, who don't want to vote, don't go to vote, but yes this opinion that we don't like any candidate, this is welcome news," said Kripa Shankar Pandey, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Lucknow city.

In a landmark judgement delivered today, the apex court ruled that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) should have a button that will allow the voters to choose 'none of the above' option.

"Negative voting would foster purity and vibrancy in elections. Negative voting would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates," said an apex court bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

The apex court passed the order after hearing a petition filed by an NGO the People's Union for Civil Liberties.