More than 2.18 lakh voters opted for NOTA, or “None of the above”, in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore Lok Sabha Constituency where the Congress candidate withdrew his nomination at the last moment.

While Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Shankar Lalwani won the seat with 12.2 lakh votes, the NOTA option recorded 2.18 lakh votes.

On April 30, Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Jitu Patwari had urged voters in Indore to hit the NOTA button to teach the BJP a lesson after the Congress’s candidate, Akshay Kanti Bam, withdrew his nomination and joined the BJP. Bam had backed out from the contest on April 29, the last day to withdraw nominations.

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This is the highest ever number of NOTA votes registered in an Indian election, reported The Times of India. Previously, Bihar’s Gopalganj had recorded 51,600 NOTA votes and in 2014, the Nilgiris parliamentary constituency in Tamil Nadu had reported 46,559 NOTA votes. NOTA votes are not counted while deciding the winner.

BJP leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan had claimed in May that residents in Indore were likely to press the NOTA button instead of voting for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“[Bam’s defection] should not have happened,” Mahajan had said. “There was no need for this, as BJP’s victory in Indore was a foregone conclusion.”

Indore voted on May 13, in the fourth phase of elections. The BJP has held the Indore Lok Sabha constituency since 1989. In 2019, the BJP’s Lalwani had won the seat by more than 5.4 lakh votes.

Only a week before Bam’s defection, on April 22, the BJP’s candidate in the Surat Lok Sabha constituency was elected unopposed after the Congress candidate was disqualified and the others withdrew their nomination. Mukesh Dalal was declared the winner two weeks before Surat voted in the second phase on May 7.

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