Voting in Presidential polls not mandatory: EC

New Delhi, July 17: In a landmark ruling, the Election Commission (EC) today made it clear that the voting for the Presidential elections is neither mandatory nor can a political party issue a whip to its members to vote for a particular candidate.

The issue came up before the EC following a petition being filed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in this regard yesterday.

An EC notification issued said that the ''voting at election to the Office of President of India is not compulsory, like the voting at elections to the House of the People and State Legislatures where also there is no compulsion to vote.'' The ''electoral right'' of a voter is defined in section 171 A (b) of the Indian Penal Code to ''mean the right of a person to stand, or not to stand as, or to withdraw from being, a candidate or to vote or refrain from voting at election''.

The EC said every elector in the Presidential election has the freedom of making a choice to vote for any of the candidates or not to vote at the election, as per his free will and choice. This will equally apply to the political parties and they are free to canvass or seek votes of electors for any candidate or to request or appeal to them to refrain from voting.

However, the political parties cannot issue any direction or whip to their members to vote in a particular manner or not to vote at the election leaving them with no choice, as that would be tantamount to the offence of undue influence within the meaning of section 171C of the IPC, it noted.

The EC also clarified that voting in the President's election is different from voting by a member of Parliament or State Legislature inside the House and that, as held by the Supreme Court, the provisions of the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution, entailing disqualification of those who violate the party whip, do not apply to it.

The apex court, ruling in the Kuldip Nayar v Union of India case as to whether the provisions of Tenth Schedule would be attracted in the case of the election to the Rajya Sabha if a member of a State Legislative Assembly votes for a candidate in defiance of the party's directions, held that such an elector would not attract the penal provisions of the Schedule.

UNI