Gandhinagar: None Of The Above(NOTA) option will be printed on Rajya Sabha poll ballot papers in Gujarat, polling for which is scheduled to take place on August 8 at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.

Election Commission of India (ECI) had directed for use of None of the Above (NOTA) in ballot paper of Rajya Sabha election in year 2013. The ECI had issued this directive in the context of a Court decision.

Daggubati Venkateshwara Rao of the Congress had became the first legislator to avail None Of The Above (NOTA) option, introduced for the first time in the history of Rajya Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh in February 2014.

NOTA is printed in ballot papers after the names of candidates. NOTA is not mentioned in the same language in which ballot papers are printed.

Marking against NOTA is by way of writing figures 1, 2 or 3 as in the case of marking preference for candidates.If preference 1 is marked against NOTA, it is treated as a case of not voting for any of the candidates and such ballot paper is treated as invalid even if 1 is also marked against any other candidate in addition to being marked against NOTA. If the first preference is validly marked against one of the candidates and the second preference is marked against NOTA, the ballot paper is treated as valid for the candidate for whom the first preference has been marked.

The representatives of the states and of the Union Territories in the Rajya Sabha are elected by the method of indirect election.

The representatives of each state and UTs are elected by the elected members of the Legislative Assembly of that state and by the members of the electoral college for that Union Territory, as the case may be, in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.