Team Anna press for ‘Right to Reject’ button

Stepping up their pitch on electoral reforms, social activist Anna Hazare and his team yesterday demanded inclusion of 'right to reject' option in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). They also called for two election commissioners to be given constitutional status on lines of the chief election commissioner.

During their meeting with the Election Commission, Team Anna also demanded that candidates against whom a court had framed charges, be barred from contesting elections.

Hazare, along with his close associates Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, had discussions with chief election commissioner S Y Qureshi for about an hour.

The team raised issues like inclusion of form 49(O), wherein a voter could opt for not voting for any of the candidates and barring of candidates against whom charges had been framed in courts.

Team Anna said the meeting had been  ''very useful'' and the commission was ''very receptive'' to their ideas and demands.

Following the meeting, Hazare told reporters that 'right to reject' was ''very important'' and that it would help in ''cleansing'' the electoral scenario.