Prompted understandably by upper caste ‘disenchantment’, the NOTA (None of the Above) votes crossed over 1.4 per cent of the total polling in Madhya Pradesh and felled four of the most powerful BJP Ministers and several other MLAs. In MP, many upper caste outfits had openly declared that they would waste their votes by opting for NOTA rather than voting for the BJP for passing a legislation in Parliament to retain the stringent SC/ST Act. The same NOTA story was also repeated in Rajasthan, though in some pockets the BJP also gained in both the States because of SC voters reacting against the upper caste aggressiveness.
The number of no-choice votes outnumbered victory margins in good 22 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh. While the gap between BJP and Congress vote share was only 0.1% (BJP being in the lead), NOTA share stood at 1.4 per cent of votes polled — over 5.4 lakh. The NOTA option gives the voter the choice to reject all candidates in the election fray.
A section of BJP leadership, however, point out that BJP did well in the Vindhya region of Madhya Pradesh as SC voted for it on account of passing the amended SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Bill in Parliament.
It is also being contended that NOTA factor could also have affected the victory margin of some of the Congress candidates had the disenchanted Upper caste voters not opted to waste their votes.
In MP, the BJP lost 12 seats where the NOTA margin was more than margin of loss. The trend was visible in Chambal region, where Thakur voters are believed to have not backed the BJP for backing the SC atrocity legislation.
Similarly, Bundelkhand and Malwa drew the highest number of NOTA votes and changed the poll outcomes. Nine upsets were in Bundelkhand and eight in Malwa tribal region.
NOTA played out in a way that the BJP failed to capture majority despite bagging .1% vote share more than the Congress which got 41% of the votes. On the contrary, Congress, with help from BSP, SP and Independents, crossed the majority mark of 116, while the BJP managed 109 seats.
In at least 11 seats where the Congress won, NOTA got more votes than the winning margin — Biaora, Damoh, Gunnor, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Jobat, Mandhata, Nepanagar, Rajnagar, Raipur and Suwasra. NOTA also polled more votes than the victory margin in Bina and Kolaras, where BJP candidates won. In seven of these 11 seats, the victory margin was less than 1,000 votes.
In the touch and go poll verdict, the BJP narrowly missed the bus even though it polled more votes.
In 2008, BJP collected 38% votes and won 143 seats but this time round ended up with 109 seats despite securing more than 40% votes.
NOTA got 1.4% of the total vote share even as Samajwadi Party got 1.01% while AAP got 0.7% votes.
NOTA may have again played a role in denting prospects of the losing side in Rajasthan with 1.3 per cent of voters going for it.
In Rajasthan, NOTA votes stood at 1.3% while SP and NCP got 0.2% votes. Communist Party of India (Marxist) has 1.2%.
In Rajasthan , at least 15 constituencies polled more NOTA votes than the victory margin of the wining candidates.
Health Minister Kalicharan Saraf in the outgoing Vasundhara Raje-led BJP Government won by 1,704 votes from Malviya Nagar constituency where NOTA was exercised by 2,371 voters. The lowest victory margin was witnessed in Asind constituency where BJP’s Jabbar Singh Sankhala trounced Congress’s Manish Mewara by only 154 votes while 2,943 voters opted for NOTA.
Similarly in Pilibanga, BJP’s Dharmendra Kumar defeated Congress’s Vinod Kumar by just 278 votes but 2441 NOTA votes were polled, as per the election commission data. While on Marwar Junction seat independent candidate Khushveer Singh defeated BJP’s Kesaram Choudhary by 251 votes against 2719 NOTA. The other Assembly constituencies where NOTA votes were recorded more than victory margin include: Ghatol, Chohtan, Pachpadra, Bundi, Chomu, Pokaran, Khanpur, Khetri, Makrana, Dantaramgarh and Fatehpur.
