People's Right to Reject Candidates in Democracy

There are rare instances of the people of a locality en masse boycotting general elections to persuade the rulers to attend their common demands. All know such protests serve no purpose at all. Even if a majority of the electorate abstain from voting, since there is no rule for minimum poll percentage, the election will not become invalid in our democracy system….Here few candidates contest , and the one who wins more votes than the next highest becomes MLA or MP. Thus the minority often virtually rules the majority , a paradox visibly experienced by us :


A voter can keep away without going to the polling boothe or wilfully cast an invalid vote if he does not approve of any among the contestants: but merely by having this facility to do so, a citizen’s rights in politics cannot be said to be fully satisfied. On the other hand, he must also have, like all other politicians, equal freedom to say in public why no candidate deserves his vote and thereby attract all like-thinking voters to his fold – the concept of democracy attains meaningfulness only then.


All those who do not exercise franchise are not absolute apolitical men without any political views ; a good number among the non-voters wish to express their opinion in voting if they have opportunity for it . The political ‘professionals’ are wont to describe the former as uninterested men in national affairs and deliberately discard them . But the Supreme Court has accepted a petition by some for providing a particular nob in the voting machine for negative votes. Many like-minded voters among us are expecting the final decree to be in our favour. If it does , our ‘invisible’ candidate will contest at one and same time in all constituencies ; and if he wins more votes than any other contestant, all the candidates in the fray will have to be declared automatically defeated …..How can one become people’s representative when more number of people reject him????