Lawyer’s HC plea: Repoll in places where Nota wins

Patiala: A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Punjab and Haryana high court by a lawyer from Nabha, requesting that as the ‘none of the above’ (Nota) option will be included on the ballot for the first time in the upcoming Punjab panchayat elections, a repoll should be held in cases where the option gets the highest number of votes.
This, the lawyer has contended, will allow new candidates to participate. The petition also seeks elections between unopposed candidates and Nota in situations where only one candidate is running and winning unopposed. The court is set to hear the matter on Monday.
Advocate Harkirat Singh Sakrali differentiated between winning unanimously and unopposed, stating: “In unanimous elections, voters’ right to choose is not violated. But, in cases of unopposed victory, winning candidate abuses power and electors are deprived of the opportunity to vote.”
The PIL comes amid allegations of candidates being prevented from filing nominations, forcing voters to accept an unopposed candidate as their sarpanch.
The petitioner has also sought that if Nota wins, all candidates should be considered defeated and barred from contesting elections for at least three years, with new candidates being allowed to participate in a re-election.