A NOTA vote is so Valuable and Precious

“A NOTA vote is so Valuable and Precious ! It is your long awaited `Big Slap` on the face of the treacherous Political Parties/Candidates”

Stands for Empowering the Voters` “Right to Negative Voting”

None Of The Above Campaign Committee, Manipur/Kangleipak (NOTACACOM, M/K) is a Non-Governmental Organisation formed under the banner of the NOTA Campaign Committee, NorthEast (NOTACACOM, NE) by like-minded Indigenous Citizens of North Eastern India under the Article 19 (1) (c) of the Constitution of India relating to the newly introduced “None of the Above” (NOTA) provision in the country`s elections by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in compliance of a directive of the Supreme Court of India. The order was passed on September 27, 2013 by a bench of the Apex Court headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam thereby enlisting India as one of the 12 democratic countries of the world having this electoral provision.

NOTACACOM, M/K welcomes the unique and bold judgement of the Apex Court and heralds its order that it “would lead to a systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates”. “Democracy is all about choices and voters will be empowered by this right to negative voting”.

Aims and Objectives :-

1.    NOTACACOM, M/K believes in Value-based Polities` and True Democracy` and it will work solely for political awareness to the people of Manipur State in order to empower them the “Right to Negative Voting”. In this very political philosophy, it will extend its cooperation to the NOTACACOM, NE from time to time in the latter`s democratic activities across the North-Eastern Region of India.

2.    NOTACACOM, M/K believes that all the region`s States and particularly Manipur are less developed in comparison with other States of India because of lack of competent political leaders and committed political parties for the last so many decades and ever since Her Merger with India. In this regard, while the Committee has no objection for the citizens to choose their own parties and candidates, it will campaign for casting NOTA votes against those incompetent parties and candidates in all the Indian parliamentary/assembly elections to be held in the State.

3.    The Committee agrees the democratic principle that majority carries the vote, nevertheless our unique identity, historical pride and inherited resources have always been not cohesive in the present body polity of the country and our right for a harmonious development has always been deprived of for the last 65 years. Now, this Committee will expose and vocal all the maligns of various Political Parties, MLAs, Ministers, Candidates and of course the sorry figures of the Electorates too, such that we all the citizens have to collectively realise that “We in this present generation are too late to compromise further of our basic democratic rights in the parlance of Universal rights, values and development”.

4.    The Committee has less hope in this present form of People`s Representation in the Parliament (both Upper and Lower Houses) for the smaller States. In this parliamentary number game politics of power, none of our elected few 3 MPs in their respective tenures in the Houses could have stormed the houses or ever influenced to pass a Bill to become an Act in favour of our State. If they were, today`s decades old AFSPA, Territorial Integrity, ILPS, Border Fencing, Hill-Valley tangles would never been surfaced today.

5.    The Committee will always be against those political parties and candidates who can`t bring radical change in the body polity of Manipur and those who cannot protest and stand against the various divisive Articles/Acts enshrined in the Indian Constitution which are extremely contravene for a tiny State like ours e.g. different land laws, divided Administration of Hill and Valley, Art. 3, etc.

6.    The Committee will also be against those Political Parties and Candidates who are communal and religious in spirit and works and will campaign for casting NOTA votes against them.

7.    The Committee will campaign for casting NOTA votes against those corrupted Ministers/MLAs if they are further contesting elections.

8.    The Committee will remain campaigning for NOTA votes in all the forthcoming elections till there are more cleaner and competent political parties and candidates whom the people have confidence.

 The Committee is of the opinion that those electorates abstaining from voting for all these years because of their lost hope on the present political parties and candidates can only waste their precious votes as `bogus` or `proxy` in the present electoral trend and through this newly introduced democratic medium of NOTA by the ECI in the Indian electoral system all the indigenous small communities of the geo-politically contiguous NE can be democratically awaken for realising a collective political wisdom to sensitize all these more or less similar unresolved decades old tangles. The Committee knows that this new democratic provision of NOTA is merely symbolic in this initial stage but firmly believes that this step will further evolve to enactment of newer laws like dis-qualification of candidates, calling for fresh elections and even like those fallouts in the erstwhile Soviet Union and other advanced democratic countries of the world if people prefer for NOTA votes in majority over others. Majority votes of NOTA can send a political massage to the concerned that we are quite dissatisfactory in the present democratic body polity and we can shape our own destiny in the State and across the NE region if we are united…

A NOTA vote is so Valuable and Precious !
It is your long awaited `Big Slap` on the face of the treacherous
Political Parties/Candidates !

Yours Sincerely

L Victor Singh
Secretary Publicity
NOTA Campaign Committee, Manipur/Kangleipak
(NOTACACOM, M/K)