Issue will be examined thoroughly: Rahul Gandhi
SRINAGAR: With elections due next year, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the state Congress have taken up the ‘negative’ implications of ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option available in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with New Delhi.
Both the parties have vehemently argued before the government of India and the Congress high command that the NOTA option in EVMs can be misused by the separatists.
A local news agency, KNS reports that Mr Abdullah has also spokens about the issue to Union Home Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde.
It reports quoting sources that senior leaders of the state Congress also raised the issue during a meeting with Rahul Gandhi in Srinagar.
“Rahul Ji assured us that the issue will be thoroughly examined by the Congress high command and a decision in this regard will be take accordingly,” a senior Congress minister who met Mr Gandhi told the agency.
In this backdrop, the state Congress is also said to have shot a number of communiqués to the Congress high command in Delhi emphasizing the need to go for review of the Supreme Court judgment in context of the ‘peculiar situation’ in Jammu and Kashmir.
Misuse
In its judgment, the Apex Court had directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to introduce NOTA button on EVMs so that the voters have an option available to reject their votes.
When asked to elaborate on ‘negative implications’ of NOTA option in Kashmir, a senior Congress leader said: “For example tomorrow if separatists urge people to participate in elections and press NOTA button then it will be deemed as a referendum. This is how this option can be misconstrued and misused.”
Various Congress leaders said the central government has options available to it to get the Supreme Court judgment modified in respect of Jammu and Kashmir.
The NOTA option assumes significance in Jammu and Kashmir as the separatists have been asking people to boycott the electoral process at every level for the last two decades.
In order to ensure minimum participation in elections, they have been running election boycott campaigns also.
On the forefront is hardline separatist, Syed Ali Geelani. He has said that participation in elections is to “betray the freedom movement” and a move to legitimize “Indian occupation in Jammu and Kashmir”.
