Dear Ranjeet, Manoj and Priyarag, Refer to your various posts.
Pl. put Section 49-O for a Search and you will get 100 sites on this starting from Wikipedia. Read as many of them as you can. I am presenting two msg below which I sent to various people who are seriously working on this to make an Election issue this time in whole of India. Let us see. Dr.V.N.Sharma ************************ 1. Dear Dr. Sadgopal, This section 49-O was tried by me and members of Samta Sangathan in 1979 elections (Nitish Kumar and Shivanand Tiwari etc.were a member of SS then) when I had freshly arrived in Ranchi from IIT Kanpur. On the advice of legal luminaries and Kishan Patnaik that the votes will get cancelled if such "No votes" are there in majority. I did not read that myself. But somebody reminded me of that recently and I tried to check the facts from different websites. *Pl. read Page 93 and page 172 (3,5 and 6) in the following link.* http://www.eci.gov.in/ElectoralLaws/HandBooks/Handbook_for_Presiding_Officers.pdf *What should happen if 3-2 is negative. I concluded from here combined with what we were told in 1979. But it remains implicit.* I will continue to check whether there were amendments in 1969 and contains cancellation part in explicit terms. ****************** 2. Dear Dr. Sadgopal, After all the search and review I have come to a conclusion that Rule 49-O has not been amended in 1969. It is as it was in 1961. Different people are making different interpretation. The link below has a Para- Implications of this Rule-where it concludes that cancellation of election result is not there in the Rule. http://theseekar.blogspot.com/2008/12/rule-49-o-right-to-reject-every.html The link below says otherwise http://www.cplash.com/post/I-VOTE-NOBODY--is-VALID----Section-49-O----395.html That Election Commission has already written to the GOI (PM) to amend the Rule to make it a Negative or Neutral voting. It means that so far "I Vote Nobody" is not deducted from the total polled votes. Nothing has happened anyway. But the link sent earlier to you * * http://www.eci.gov.in/ElectoralLaws/HandBooks/Handbook_for_Presiding_Officers.pdf * * gives a method where no votes can be hypothetically in majority. How in that case result can be declared for a winning candidate? It is big question PUCL has filed a case in Supreme Court but no Ruling so far. I think we should do something to press for Cancellation of the election where "I Vote Nobody" are in majority. + Right to Recall of elected reps if they are not working to the satisfaction of their electors. vns * -- "Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act." Albert Einstein Dr.V.N.Sharma http://canvas.nowpos.com/vnsharma
