'Repoll likely in future if NOTA gets most votes'

Parasuram, chairman of the 27th state election commissioners’ conference and Commissioner of the State Election Commission (SEC) of Madhya Pradesh, said Information Technology (IT) will be widely adopted for elections in future and issues like online voting and online filing of nomination papers by candidates would be discussed.

Delivering the inaugural speech of the conference at Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel here on Tuesday, he said online voting had already been experimented with in the local bodies election in Gujarat, while online nominations had been received well in the local bodies polls in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Out of the total 30 commissioners of SECs, 19 are taking part. Besides, chairman of Electronics Corporation of India Rear Admiral Sanjay Chaubey, director of Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) Vinay Kumar Katyal, general manager of BEL G M Senapathi, deputy secretary of SEC of Madhya Pradesh Deepak Saxena, vice president of IL&FS Pankaj Gupta and managing director of Mysuru-based Mysuru Paints and Varnish Limited Chandrasekhar Doddamani are attending.

Parasuram said, in Maharashtra and Haryana, none of the above (NOTA) on the ballot papers had already been treated as a virtual candidate in the local bodies election.

“It is a step towards empowering the people to reject unworthy candidates. In future, if NOTA gets the highest number of votes, it may pave the way for re-election” he said.

He said, even though the Election Commission was a three-member body, it should be considered as a 30-plus-member body as the commissioners of the SECs also play a major role in formulating policies.