SC should have consulted political parties over negative vote: Yechury

Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury on Friday came out against the Supreme Court's judgement to empower a voter to reject all candidates in a poll.

"Neither the SC, nor the Election Commission are a party. So, prior discussion should have taken place with parties contesting elections," Yechury told media here.

"Political parties participate in an election, without discussion with them, don't see this decision as a good sign," he said.

Yechury further said that although none of the members of the left had anything to hide or fear yet, he felt that 'Right to Reject' made no sense.

"We have no problem at all; if they want to add that.. But we don't see any purpose of that. I mean a person needs not vote in any case; even if the column is there, or not there. The question is what does that column mean? Suppose the people vote for that column and suppose that has a majority, what does that mean in our system? You still elect the person who gets the highest number of votes," he added.

Hearing a petition filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties, an NGO, the apex court directed the Election Commission to provide a button on electronic voting machines to allow voters to reject any candidate or candidates contesting an election in a constituency.

The apex court asked the central government to provide all assistance to the election commission in introducing None of the Above (NOTA) option in EVMs and ballot papers.

The court says that it would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates.

There is no provision yet to count the "rejection" votes and so these will not impact the result of the election.