Rajya Sabha was rocked by opposition protests on Tuesday over an Election Commission (EC) notification that provides MLAs the ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option in the elections to the Upper House on 8 August. The annoyed oppositions’ members forced adjournments of the proceedings questioning the NOTA provision for these polls.
Considerably, the protests come at a time when an impressive battle for Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat is near. The poll will see heavy-weights such as BJP chief, Amit Shah, HRD minister, Smriti Irani and veteran Congressman, Ahmed Patel in race.
After the House assembled at noon, deputy leader of the Congress, Anand Sharma said the move to offer NOTA option was made without amending the Constitution. “It vitiates the election… Constitution has not been amended. Representation of People Act has not been amended. NOTA have been introduced… unless Constitution is amended, how this can be done,” he asked. He also asked how a new provision could be introduced in between.
Chairman, Hamid Ansari recommended that the matter be taken up with the EC. He tried to proceed with the Question Hour, but, the opposition kept on raising the matter.
Finance minister, Arun Jaitley said, “The judgment came several years before this government came to power. The Election Commission pursuant to that judgment had issued some notification under Article 324. Article 324 covers all election in this country and therefore that’s a circular which they issued, not now, but earlier.”
However, Congress members continued to protest.
In the meantime, an EC official reportedly had said that a provision to have NOTA option in the Rajya Sabha polls came in to force in 2014. The Supreme Court order had said that NOTA button should be installed on electronic voting machines.
