Gujarat Assembly polls: NOTA determines victors on 30 seats

According to figures released by the Election Commission, over 1.8 per cent of the total votes cast in Gujarat polls went for NOTA.

Picture for representational purpose (Source: AP)

Over 5.51 lakh voters, in the just concluded Gujarat Assembly polls, pressed the NOTA (None of the Above) button, adversely affecting the results for both the BJP and the Congress. On at least 30 seats, the votes polled by NOTA were more than the victory margin. In Dholka, where sitting cabinet minister Bhupendra Chudasma won by 327 votes, 2,347 votes were polled NOTA. Similarly, on the Chhota Udepur seat, the sitting leader of opposition, Mohansinh Rathwa won by a margin of 1,093 votes where a total of 5870 votes were cast in the favour of NOTA.

The number of votes cast for NOTA seems to have affected the result for both BJP and Congress on 15 seats each. These also include the two seats won by independent candidates in Lunawada and Morva Hadaf, where the BJP candidates were a close second.

On the Jamjodhpur seat in Saurashtra as well, sitting BJP minister Chimanbhai Sapariya lost the Congress candidate by a mere 2,518 votes. Here the votes polled by NOTA was 3,214. On the Porbandar seat, the number of votes cast in favor of NOTA was 3,433 while former GPCC president Arjun Modhwadia lost to sitting BJP minister Babu Bokhiriya by a margin of 1,855.

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Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said, “There are two reasons for the high number of NOTA voters. First, it shows the disillusionment of the voters towards the political parties. Secondly, it shows that a large section of the electorate who were disillusioned by the BJP’s regime and could not be attracted towards the Congress.”

According to figures released by the Election Commission, over 1.8 per cent of the total votes cast in Gujarat polls went for NOTA. This was more than the total votes received by the Bahujan Samaj Party (0.7%), Congress rebel leader Shankersinh Vaghela supported All India Hindustan Congress Party (0.3%), the Nationalist Congress Party (0.6%) which won one seat and the newly formed Bharatiya Tribal Party (0.7%) which won two seats.

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