New Delhi: Political arch-rivals - the BJP and the Congress - seem to have joined hands for a change. Both the parties are against the decision to have the None of the Above (Nota) option in the forthcoming Rajya Sabha polls.
While the Congress moved the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the BJP approached the Election Commission for the removal of Nota, a day after the Congress made a similar demand.
The apex court will hear the plea filed by the Congress’ Gujarat unit on Thursday. The BJP is of the view that since parties issue a whip for Rajya Sabha polls, Nota option goes “against the nature of the whip.”
The BJP has fielded its national president Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and former Congress leader Balwantsinh Rajput for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat against the lone Congress candidate Ahmed Patel. The election is scheduled on August 8.
There was uproar in Parliament on Tuesday and charges were traded after the Congress raised the issue of Nota in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat.
Sources disclosed that a senior Congress leader also had a discussion with a Cabinet minister on the issue earlier in the day. Chief whip of the Congress in the Gujarat Assembly, Shailesh Manubhai Parmar, in his petition before the apex court, has sought quashing of the August 1 circular issued by the secretary of the Assembly. The circular states that Nota option would be made applicable in the Upper House elections.
The petition has alleged that use of the Nota option violates the provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951, and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.
“Without a corresponding amendment in the Act and the rules, any purported administrative action of the Election Commission of India to introduce Nota is ex-facie illegal, arbitrary and in fact tainted with mala fide,” it claimed.
The petition alleged that the EC “has become a tool in the hands of the ruling dispensation to facilitate violation of the provisions of the Constitution, the Act and the rules”.
