In three by-elections, which included one assembly seat, as many as 27,000 voters said no to all candidates. These are aspirational times and the Indian political parties can only ignore the

voters at their own peril. The shock defeat in three by-elections may have come as a rude jolt for the ruling BJP, the other loud and clear message the voters sent to all political parties

is that gone are days of helplessness when their choice was limited to electing between “lesser evil” and “known devil”.  Today, they have the power of NOTA through which they’re telling the

politicos of all hues that “We will, we will rock you.” This trend is catching up fast in Rajasthan as in the last assembly elections 87,609 voters chose the option to reject all

Union of India judgment. Although with it India became the 14th country to introduce negative voting, NOTA does not have the ‘right to reject’ and the candidate who gets the maximum number

of votes wins. The rise of the NOTA factor can be attributed to political fatigue or lack of choice for the voter. Fed up with seeing the same old familiar faces and slogans, the alienated

voter is not shunning the polling booths but exercising its right to tell politicians that “if you don’t care about us so do we”.  In Rajasthan, where the Congress and BJP have been changing

hands every five years for quite some time, the NOTA has become the Gandhian way of protest.  This non-violent weapon in the hands of voters has empowered them to visit the polling booths

and express their displeasure.  Now, the onus is on the politicians. It’s time for them to clean up their act otherwise as Bob Dylan said: “The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind.”