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Nota may upset BJP, Congress applecarts

The activists urge people to press the last button of Nota in the EVMs if they are not happy with any of the candidates fielded in their constituencies.

Even as top politicians of various hues started descending on Gujarat from Thursday, activists of as many as 16 non-government organisations (NGOs) have launched a statewide campaign to create awareness about the none-of-the-above (Nota) option in electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the April 30 Lok Sabha elections in Gujarat.

The NGOs’ street-corner meetings in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat, Bhavnagar and Mehsana have been attracting the state’s voters, especially those aged between 20 years and 39 years who constitute about 50 per cent of the total 40 million electors, and hold the key to future of the country.

The activists urge people to press the last button of Nota in the EVMs if they are not happy with any of the candidates fielded in their constituencies. They also convince them that opting for Nota is not negative voting but assertion of their democratic right.

Environmentalist Rohit Prajapati of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), told Khaleej Times that his NGO as well as other voluntary bodies had started an aggressive drive to tell youngsters that Nota) was not negative voting but a positive step against corruption, money and muscle power and deceptive development.

Other NGOs who are also holding Nota) awareness programmes include Radical Socialist, Sahiyar Stree Sangathan, Jyoti Karmachari Mandal and Vadodara Kamadar Union and Vyavasaik Swastya Suraksha Mandal, besides others.

During the Nota) campaign, the NGOs expose the truth behind the development claims of Gujarat as well as the flawed policies of the federal government, and thus Nota option if used by youths in large numbers can upset the calculations of both the BJP and the Congress.

According to Prajapati, a common factor between the Congress, the BJP and other regional parties is that they favour economic policies that help a handful of corporates and hinted that BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress contestant Madhusudan Mistry who were contesting from Vadodara would have to face NGOs’ no-holds-barred campaign against their parties.

The activists have been posing questions to the candidates on issues ranging from water supply and pollution to inflation, health and violence against women.

“All political parties make claims about growth and development. But whose development they are talking about and at what cost? We will bring out truth behind such claims as people have the right to know the reality behind skewed development stories,” said Trupti Shah of Sahiyar, an NGO.