Chennai In 2013, the NOTA (none of the above) option was provided to Indian voters. Since then, they have been exercising it with gusto.
Although in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, NOTA was used slightly less than in the previous two general elections, it still played a decisive role in constituencies such as Mumbai North West, Attingal and Virudhunagar, where it outnumbered the winning margin.
At 63.7 lakh votes, the NOTA option garnered a 1 per cent vote share in the 2024 general elections compared to 1.06 per cent in 2019 and 1.09 per cent in 2014. However, NOTA votes exceeded the winning margin in 19 out of the 543 constituencies. In 14 of these seats, margins were smaller than 5,000.
A total of 9,408 NOTA votes were polled in Virudhunagar, where the DMDK candidate V Vijaya Prabhakaran lost to incumbent MP and Congress leader Manickam Tagore with a thin margin of around 4,300 votes.
In a cliffhanger between the two Shiv Sena factions for the Mumbai North West seat, Shiv Sena’ Ravindra Waikar beat Shiv Sena UBT’s Amol Gajanan Kirtikar by 48 seats, but the NOTA votes stood at 15,161. Similarly, in the tight contest between Congress’ Manish Tewari and BJP’s Sanjay Tandon in Chandigarh, NOTA votes at 2,912 were higher than the winning margin of 2,500 votes.
Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and Odisha, all of which have emerged as NDA strongholds in 2024 elections, recorded the highest NOTA votes share. Almost 75 per cent of Bihar’s constituencies recorded a vote share of over 1.5 per cent in NOTA, and in 50 per cent of Gujarat’s 25 constituencies, NOTA vote share was over 1.5 per cent.
Top constituencies
Data also showed that non-urban areas and the SC and ST reserved constituencies have consistently been reporting higher NOTA vote share since the introduction of the option in 2013. The top five constituencies in terms of number of NOTA votes polled in 2024 elections include Indore (2,18,674 votes), Araku (50,470), Nabarangpur (43,268), Gopalganj (42,863) and Kodarma (42,152).
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“NOTA is an expression of anger or discontent by voters towards the entire system and often signifies their unhappiness with all candidates,” Afroz Alam, Head, Department of Political Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, said.