In Indore, NOTA gets record votes as candidate-less Congress’s appeal works

With no Opposition in the fray, the BJP’s Shankar Lalwani. however, won the seat with a  margin of 11,75,092 votes.

In 2019, the Congress had got 31% of the votes in Indore, and NOTA 0.31%.

The Congress’s campaign for NOTA votes in Indore included posters, torch rallies and meetings, and social media chats, ahead of May 13 polling. It urged voters to teach the BJP “a lesson”, over its candidate Akshay Kanti Bam withdrawing at the last minute.

Indore is Madhya Pradesh’s biggest Lok Sabha constituency, with 25.13 lakh voters, and has been won by the BJP consistently since 1989. In 2019, the BJP won by 5.48 lakh votes, and had re-fielded its sitting MP.

Days before the last date of withdrawal of nominations, Bam found himself charged in a 17-year-old attempt to murder case arising out of a land dispute case. On April 29, Madhya Pradesh Cabinet minister and BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya announced that he had joined the party, and withdrawn his nomination from the seat.

The Congress alleged that Bam had come under pressure to withdraw due to the murder charges.

Incidentally, around a week ago, the Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court granted anticipatory bail to Bam and his father in the case.

As per court records, the incident dates back to October 4, 2007, when Bam, his father Kantilal, security agency owner Satveer Singh and two others “entered the agricultural land owned” by one Yunus Khan, “assaulted his servants, and set fire to the soybean crop”.

In its April 24 order, the court said Satveer had fired at the complainant, which “could have killed Yunus” and a “case of murder could have been registered against them”. Hence an attempt to murder case was attracted.