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What Is The Cost Of A NOTA Vote? Dhruv Rathee Explains
Brut India
Follow
4/18/2025
When did India get the option to vote NOTA? Is there a re-election if NOTA gets a majority? Do other countries vote NOTA too? Dhruv Rathee explains it all in this final video of our voting series.
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00:00
What is the value of a NOTA vote?
00:02
Friends, the vote of NOTA removed the Prime Minister of Poland from the chair.
00:07
The vote of NOTA brought down the communist government in Russia.
00:10
Let's talk about NOTA, friends.
00:13
In India, for the first time, the NOTA option was introduced in the 2013 state elections.
00:28
More than 15 lakh people chose the NOTA option then.
00:31
India was the 14th country to introduce the NOTA option.
00:35
In Greece, Spain, Colombia, it is called a white vote.
00:38
In Argentina, it is called a blank vote.
00:41
In Ukraine, it is called against all.
00:44
In India, it is called NOTA.
00:46
Friends, it is used in many countries in different names and different ways.
00:51
For example, in Argentina, if you put a blank ballot on a ballot, it is called a blank vote.
00:58
In the Norwegian election regulations, it is mandatory to give a blank ballot to every voter.
01:04
On the other hand, there are some countries that do not have the option of NOTA.
01:07
For example, Serbia, but the people there have become a little creative.
01:11
There, people decided to make a political party called the None of the Above Party.
01:17
So, this None of the Above Party fought in the elections.
01:20
And in the 2012 Serbian parliamentary elections, this None of the Above Party won even one seat.
01:26
It got 22,000 votes.
01:28
There is a city in Indonesia, Makassar.
01:31
Friends, in 2018, there were elections for the mayor in this city,
01:34
in which only one candidate was standing.
01:37
The second option was to press the NOTA button near the voters.
01:40
And friends, the NOTA got more votes and defeated that candidate by 53% to 47%.
01:46
So, again, there will be re-elections.
01:49
Friends, there are many such stories in the world,
01:51
among which the most interesting stories are of Poland and Russia.
01:54
In 1989, there was a communist government in Poland.
01:58
That government tried to manipulate the elections in such a way
02:03
that in many places, there was no opposing candidate on the seats.
02:07
But the people there hated this communist government.
02:11
So, instead of voting for that candidate,
02:14
they cut his name and put it in the ballot box.
02:16
And because of that, they had to re-elect.
02:19
And again, they had to re-elect.
02:21
Even the sitting prime minister lost there.
02:23
This was the reason, friends, why the communist regime fell in Poland.
02:28
In 1991, the same story happened in the Soviet Union.
02:31
More than 200 seats had to be re-elected with new candidates
02:36
because the existing candidates were defeated by the NOTA.
02:39
Out of the losing candidates, more than 100 candidates were communists.
02:43
In 1992, when the Soviet Union fell and a new Russia was formed,
02:47
the first president of that new Russia, Boris Yeltsin famously said,
02:51
NOTA helped convince the people that they had real power,
02:54
even in a rigged election.
02:56
And it played a role in building true democracy.
02:58
But unfortunately or ironically,
03:01
in 2006, Russia removed the NOTA option.
03:04
In any country, the significance of the NOTA is the same.
03:07
We don't want to elect any of the existing candidates for the elections.
03:13
If the NOTA gets a majority,
03:15
then ideally, all the existing candidates should be dismissed
03:19
and re-elected.
03:21
But in our country, this doesn't happen.
03:23
In our country, the NOTA doesn't have much significance.
03:27
If the NOTA gets a majority in our country,
03:29
it doesn't guarantee that the existing candidates will be dismissed
03:33
or re-elected.
03:34
So, the NOTA was just a way to give negative feedback.
03:37
It was a way to convey the message to the politicians
03:40
that we don't like any of you.
03:42
There's no point in talking about the issues you're talking about.
03:46
You should talk about our issues and listen to us.
03:48
Only then, we'll vote for you.
03:49
So, for the politicians, the NOTA was a way to create a vote bank.
03:53
The people of NOTA want the politicians to come to them
03:57
and convince the people of NOTA to vote for them.
04:01
So, this was one reason to vote for the NOTA.
04:03
But recently, in Maharashtra and Haryana,
04:06
you've found another reason to vote for the NOTA.
04:09
On November 6, 2018, the state election commission of Maharashtra
04:13
passed an order that if the NOTA gets a majority,
04:17
then re-elections will be conducted.
04:18
On 22nd November, the state election commission of Haryana
04:22
passed the same order.
04:23
The reason could be that a few months ago,
04:26
in the Panchayat elections in Maharashtra,
04:28
there were a lot of seats where the NOTA got a majority.
04:31
Specifically, there was a village in Pune where the NOTA got 85% votes.
04:36
Friends, I feel that if this order is passed nationwide,
04:40
if this law is implemented in this way,
04:42
then the NOTA will become very useful.
04:44
And actually, people will be convinced to vote for the NOTA.
04:47
But the former chief election commissioner O.P. Rawat says
04:51
that we don't have a legal framework to pass the NOTA.
04:54
The election commissioners don't have this power.
04:57
He says that the state assemblies will have to take this decision
05:00
and implement it in their state.
05:02
If the NOTA gets a majority, then re-elections will be conducted.
05:05
H.S. Brahma, who is another former chief election commissioner of ours,
05:09
has suggested that if the NOTA gets 10-15% votes,
05:13
then re-elections should be conducted.
05:15
And I feel that friends, to make it even more effective,
05:19
not only re-elections should be conducted,
05:21
but this law should also be passed
05:23
that the existing candidates should be dismissed
05:26
and only new candidates will be able to contest the re-elections.
05:29
The trend of NOTA voting in our country shows a lot of interesting things.
05:34
In the 2014 general elections, NOTA votes were at 1.1%.
05:38
An economical and political weekly study has shown that
05:41
between 2013 and 2016,
05:44
the highest percentage of NOTA voting was seen in tribal areas.
05:50
Specifically, in those seats which are reserved for scheduled tribes.
05:54
This shows that the people of the general category
05:57
were hesitating to vote for the candidates of the scheduled tribes.
06:01
They didn't want to vote for them, that's why NOTA was voted for here.
06:04
So, this shows discrimination among the people
06:07
which is reflected in NOTA voting.
06:09
In the 2017 Gujarat elections,
06:12
there were more than 20 constituencies
06:14
in which the winning margin was less than NOTA votes
06:18
between the winners and the second place.
06:20
For example, in the Godhra constituency,
06:22
NOTA got 3050 votes.
06:24
But BJP's candidate won from there with only 258 votes.
06:29
This shows that NOTA votes have a huge impact on the election results.
06:34
So, in the end, I would like to say that
06:36
if you think that any candidate from your constituency
06:40
doesn't deserve your vote,
06:42
then vote for NOTA.
06:43
Because with your one NOTA vote,
06:45
the winning margin can be changed
06:47
a politician can be convinced to bring another policy,
06:51
a politician can be convinced to take another decision,
06:54
NOTA voters can be convinced by listening to you.
06:57
NOTA vote is very important for democracy.
07:00
So, that's all for today, friends.
07:02
I hope you liked this video
07:04
which I made in collaboration with Brute India
07:06
for this mini-series.
07:08
Thank you!
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