However, NOTA votes exceeded the winning margin in 19 out of the 543 constituencies. 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. 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).

Source: The Hindu June 07, 2024 22:31 UTC