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Journalism of Courage
Its popularity is pan-India and its appeal is blind to caste, religion and gender. It has no poll manifesto, election symbol, candidate list or even a chief ministerial face. With each passing assembly election, however, it keeps getting more votes than most bit players. The None of The Above (NOTA) selection only gained in strength in the five state elections whose results were announced Tuesday.
The results of assembly elections in five states — Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, and Telangana — saw NOTA register at least 8.44 lakh votes. At the time of filing this report, NOTA had pulled 2.1 per cent of votes in the 90-seat Chhattisgarh Assembly — the highest in all five states.
NOTA was so popular among voters in the state that it had more votes than seven parties: which included NCP, SP and CPI.
However, in terms of votes, NOTA polled the highest in Madhya Pradesh with 4,15,342 votes (1.5 per cent of total vote share). With the vote share split evenly between the Congress and BJP, the votes that went towards NOTA may have tilted the scales in favour of either of the two parties.
The southern state of Telangana was next highest, with NOTA polling 2,03,112 votes (1.1 per cent of the total votes). NOTA finished higher than the TJS and CPI, both members of the ‘Praja Kutami’.
NOTA’s impact was however negligible in Mizoram and Rajasthan with it getting just 2,917 votes (0.5 per cent) and 43,844 votes (1.3 per cent), respectively.
