Despite a powerful political campaign to discourage people from hitting the NOTA (none of the above) button on the EVM (electronic voting machine), savvy Indian voters, especially rural folks, have used it effectively to express their displeasure with the system.
Voting patters in rural Maharashtra have sent out a powerful indicator of the power of NOTA in the Maharashtra assembly elections. Consider this: Dhiraj Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress won from Latur Rural constituency by defeating his nearest rival NOTA by over 100,000 votes! The second biggest vote-getter in Latur was not his political rival but NOTA. As many as 26,899 or 14% of the voters have rejected all other candidates and chose to register this fact by exercising their franchise.
In a remarkable development, voters of the Latur Rural area chose NOTA in preference to candidates of all other political parties, including Shiv Sena and Vanchit Bahujan Aaghadi.
Election Commission data, as on 24 October 2019 at 4.10pm, from across the 288 constituencies in Maharashtra, shows that NOTA has received 1.40% votes. Among recognised parties, as expected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led the pack with 25.34% share in the votes counted till the time, Shiv Sena got 16.97% votes, NCP- 16.70%, Congress -15.78% votes, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) received 2.36% votes while others, including independent candidates got 18.35% votes.
While NOTA’s overall vote-share may seem tiny, it must be noted that NOTA polled more than some recognised political parties could get. Among them, only All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) got over 1% of votes, while the rest received lesser votes.
Another thing that is emerging from the vote counting and election results is, especially in Maharashtra, in several constituencies, NOTA is either at third or fourth place, replacing recognised political parties.
Another constituency where, according to social media, voters would use NOTA, was Kothrud in Pune. However, here it was a straight fight between BJP's Chandrakant Patil and MNS' Kishor Shinde and BJP managed to retain its seat. But NOTA emerged as the third largest vote gatherer with 2.08% votes.
Worli became a high-profile constituency after Aditya Thackeray, the first among Thackeray clan, decided to jump into the poll ring. While he managed to defeat his nearest rival from Congress Dr Suresh Mane by a comfortable margin, NOTA emerged as the fourth largest vote gatherer with 1.88% share.
Interestingly, some constituencies where the winning margin is wafer thin, NOTA has registered more votes. For example, in Kopargaon constituency, Aashutosh Kale got 87,566 votes while his opponent, Snehlata Kolhe received 86,744 votes. The difference between the votes garnered by these two top candidates is just 822. However, NOTA has received 1,622 votes, almost double of what could be the winning margin.
Since vote counting is still on in both, Maharashtra and Haryana for the legislative assembly elections, the exact share of NOTA will be clear only at the end of the day.
At the moment, in Haryana, too, NOTA seems to have made an impact. So far (as at 4.25pm on 24 October 2019), NOTA has received 0.52% votes, which is higher than the votes polled by several recognised political parties, including Shiromani Akali Dal (0.38%).
Looking at the results and trends, one thing is becoming quite clear. Constituencies where the winning margin is wafer thin, the blame or credit probably goes to NOTA. Once all the results are officially declared, the picture will be clearer. But if misinformed people realise that voting NOTA also makes a point, it is bound to make political parties more accountable.
Already, some surprise results show that people have expressed their displeasure in no uncertain terms against opportunistic politicians who jumped on to the BJP bandwagon just ahead of elections.
NOTE: This article is based on data from Election Commission website at 4.50pm on 24 October 2019.
Right now chosing NOTA is the same as writing "Mera Neta Chor Hai" on the ballot paper in the old paper ballot days.
Voting for NOTA doesn't achieve anything other than giving you a false sense of smugness.
Wh is the authority to do this and if it is EC we saw the judgment and recation in2019 election