VOTE NOUGHT: Mavanalla villagers and (top) and Badichi from Bokkapuram, who used Rule 49 0 to register their protest. Pictures by Seetha

It was a cool April morning in the village of Mavanalla in the Udhamangalam assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu. Polling had started an hour earlier. All was well — till a 28-year-old voter called Vishnu stumped officials at a polling booth.

After signing the voting register, Vishnu announced that he would not vote. “You can’t do that. You should have told me before signing,” the presiding officer protested. “I can,” Vishnu countered, and cited Rule 49 0 0 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961. After an argument, the presiding officer recorded that Vishnu had invoked 49 0 and got him to sign it.

The vote — as the villagers call it — initially caused confusion in some polling booths in the Niligiri Hills. It refers to a voter’s right to not cast a vote, yet not waste it. If you don’t like any of the candidates in your constituency, you can opt for 49 0.

Sixty-year-old D.J. Balakrishnan did just that. The voter from the Gudalur assembly constituency, also in Tamil Nadu, went to his booth in Masinagudi village, and asked that his finger be marked with indelible ink, as is applied to all those who vote. The polling officials refused, saying it was not done in the case of 49 0 voters.

By noon, poll officials had become used to people invoking 49 0 . Voters from Masinagudi, Bokkapuram and Mavanalla — villages that fall in the two constituencies — were asked, after they signed the voting register, if they wanted to vote or use 49 0 . The officials wrote 49 0 against their names, circled it and asked them to sign again.

At the end of the day, out of 681 voters in Bokkapuram, only 158 had voted; 385 had opted for 49 0.

It’s hard to believe that residents of a few sleepy villages nestling in the hills are getting exercised about a rule relating to election procedures. But the regulation has become a tool of collective protest.

“Politicians haven’t helped us,” says Anand, a 28-year-old Irula tribal resident of Mavanalla. “So we decided they didn’t deserve our vote.”

It has been more effective here than in Tirupur, the bustling hosiery hub in Tamil Nadu, where people threatened to use 49 0 over a government directive to units to set up effluent treatment plants or shut down. Finally, only 295 voters in Tirupur North and 352 in Tirupur South used this on election day this year.

The Rule was little known or used in the days before electronic voting. A few people chose this option in the 2004 Mumbai local elections and in the Lok Sabha elections that year in Mumbai and Chennai. It gained attention on the Internet after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and was used a bit more extensively in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

Former chief election commissioner N. Gopalaswami found a huge interest in the Rule when he and members of a civil society group, called Forum for Integrity in Elections, met people in Chennai before the assembly elections. In Tamil Nadu, 24,824 voters used this Rule in these elections, up from fewer than 10,000 in the last assembly polls.

“People are using it,” says T. Ravindran, co-ordinator, Kerala Election Watch.

Just before the April-May elections to five state assemblies, the Central Election Commission sent a circular to all state election offices telling them about the procedures to be followed for recording votes under 49 0 and asking them to collect figures on the number of those using it. With most polling officials being unaware of the Rule, the Election Commission has also been educating them about it.

The Rule seems to have caught the imagination of voters disillusioned with poll candidates. In the age of electronic voting — when they can no longer leave unmarked ballot papers in a box — this has emerged as an alternative for those wishing to register their unhappiness with candidates.

In the three villages, 49 0 was an attempt to draw attention to the plight of people living near the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, who are being threatened with eviction by the forest department.

The issues — with forest department and green activists on one side and locals and owners of jungle resorts on the other — relate to the expansion of the tiger reserve and an elephant corridor, which will result in the eviction of people living in the vicinity and the resorts closing. People complain that villagers’ grazing rights are being taken away and that the closure of a road connecting Mysore to Udhagamandalam, that runs through the tiger reserve, between 10pm and 6am is affecting their lives.

An organisation called the Forum Against Harassment by the Forest Department (FAHFD) has been spearheading the protests against what they claim is the illegal expansion of the tiger reserve and the elephant corridor. “We have lived for years with the existing reserve and corridor without any man-animal conflict. Why are we being evicted now,” asks P.T. Varghese, secretary of the forum.

Black flags were hoisted on all buildings on March 5 and a total bandh was observed in the area on March 9. A decision was taken to boycott the election. The forum informed the chief election commissioner about this. That got five polling booths declared critical and vulnerable.

The forum then decided that using 49 0 was a better option. Heads of villages affected by the forest department’s actions attended a meeting addressed by a lawyer who explained the use of the Rule. The heads, in turn, spread the word in their villages. “The government says we will have to go, so I voted ,” says Badichi, a Kurumbi tribal woman from Bokkapuram.

As a protest tool, however, 49 0 has little effect. After all, it doesn’t prevent someone from getting elected — unless all voters use it. That’s the argument local political party representatives used in an attempt to dissuade the Nilgiri villagers from using 49 0 .

“We need to keep the local MLA in good humour to get development works done. By not voting, we won’t be able to approach them,” Sangeetha Binu, president of the Masinagudi panchayat and a DMK member, told them.

It’s a view shared by Moideen, an AIADMK member who quit as president of the FAHFD, when the decision to use 49 0 was taken. He explained to the people that voting for someone would help hold the elected representative accountable.

“We know that,” counters Anand. But politicians, he stresses, haven’t helped them out.

In all three villages it is hard to find someone who has cast a vote for a candidate in the election, even though in Masinagudi, only 369 of 3,012 villagers exercised 49 0 .

Abdul Haq, a 60-year-old resident of Bokkapuram, is the only one in his family who voted. “Everybody was using 49 0 , so I decided to vote,” he laughs.

People were told that this was the only way to draw attention to their problems. “Journalists from outside the state are coming to speak to us. Politicians will now follow,” smirks Charlie Corfield, an ex-forest ranger and native of Masinagudi.

The Rule is not without its share of problems. A senior election official in West Bengal says that 49 0 “plays havoc” with the voter’s right to secrecy. Polling officials and agents would know the identity of people not wishing to vote. “In a volatile area, this might be risky for the voter as he might face problems later,” says the official.

To resolve this problem, a “none of the above” button should be incorporated in voting machines, says Tasaduk Ariful Hussain, co-ordinator of Assam Election Watch. This would enable voters to reject their candidates — and remain anonymous.

In Tamil Nadu, the High Court had to step in and prevent the state police wing in charge of militancy from collecting details and questioning those who had used 49 0 — a clear sign that it had rattled the state government, even though it was used by fewer than 0.1 per cent of the state’s voters.

But, as Gopalaswami points out, the rule is catching on as a tool of protest. Saying no is getting to be easy.

Cool rule

■ Under Rule 49 0 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, if an elector decides not to vote after his electoral roll number has been recorded in the register (Form 17A), the presiding officer will record this and the elector will sign this noting.

■ The Rule was useful in the days before photo ID cards. An elector not interested in voting in favour of someone could prevent someone else from voting in his or her name.

■ However, the Rule was hardly exercised. Earlier, the voter could put an unmarked sheet in the ballot box. With electronic voting, this option is no longer available because once a voter goes into the polling booth, a button has to be pressed. Now an elector not wanting to vote has to sign the register. This, however, removes the anonymity of the voter’s choice.

■ Rule 49 0 , however, isn’t useful in determining outcomes. In fact, it makes the election less representative. If 90 out of 100 voters exercise the Rule, the person who gets a majority of the 10 votes cast will get elected.