IITians to press reject vote button

Chennai: Taking cue from the Ele­ction Commission of India, students at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are likely to install “reject the candidate button” in their institute election this year.

The Student Affairs Cou­ncil at IIT-M has also constituted a committee to look into the merits and demerits involved in the implementation of new voting system for their student bodies across disciplines.

Speaking to Deccan Chro­nicle on Tuesday, Sree Sat­wik Gokina, speaker, Stu­dent Affairs Council, IIT- Madras said, “every year we conduct elections for 136 posts in 17 hostels, besides branch councillors in 13 departments. Elections take place in March and if nobody files nomination for a particular post at institute level, we go for re-election in September.”

During the October 30 SAC meeting, one of the branch councillors initiated a debate about the use of “reject the candidate button” in the institute elections. “We discussed the issue at length for about an hour’s time and students had their own opinions,” Satwik Gokina said.

Students who supported the proposal said that, if 50 per cent of the voters had pressed the reject button then the election stands cancelled and they need to go for a re-election whereas those against it pointed out that it would be difficult to conduct elections again with involvement of 8,500 st­u­­dents (voters) on the campus.

Satwik said that a few other suggestions were also made at the meeting including that the candidate who got rejected could be debarred from contesting again. Students threw up a new question as to what would happen in the case of a una­nimous contestant to whom majority of the students don’t want to vote.

Considering the technicalities involved in the new method, SAC has formed a committee to address concerns of students, Prof. L.S. Ganesh, dean (students), IIT-Madras said, adding that the council would take its final call in the issue after the committee submits its recommendations.