In Naxal heartland, NOTA plays spoilsports for BJP

In four constituencies, number of NOTA votes were more than margin of votes with which Congress candidate defeated BJP nominee

In the Naxal-infested pocket of Bastar, people rejected the candidates contesting the election by pressing none of the above (NOTA) button in the electronic voting machines in a big way that ruined the prospect of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the region.

Interestingly, four of the 12 assembly constituencies in Bastar had recorded the number of NATO votes more than the vote difference between the winner and the loser. The NOTA vote option was introduced in the polling for the first time.

“It was really surprising that in Bastar that had been otherwise known as undeveloped pocket, people had come out in such a large number to reject the candidates,” a political observer in Bastar said. In all, 77,327 votes in the NOTA account were counted in 12 assembly constituencies of Bastar.

According to state electoral officials, 4,07,547 NOTA votes were recorded in the 90 assembly constituencies of Chhattisgarh.
The people rejecting the candidates would be one of the reasons for the poor performance of BJP in Bastar. The party bagged only four seats in Bastar while in 2008, it had won 11 out of 12 seats in the region.

Reports reaching from Bastar underlined that in four assembly constituencies, the number of NOTA votes were more than the margin of votes with which the Congress candidate defeated the BJP nominee.

In Dantewada, Congress candidate Devti Karma defeated BJP’s Bheema Mandavi by a margin of 5987 votes while the number of NOTA votes cast in the constituency was 9673. Similarly, BJP minister Lata Usendi was defeated by Mohan Markam of Congress by a margin of 5,135 votes while 6,735 NOTA votes were registered in the constituency.

In Keshkal, BJP’s Sevakram Netam had to face a defeat by a margin of 7883 while the number of votes rejecting the candidate was 8,377. Sanjay Kodapi of BJP lost the election in Kanker by a margin of 4,625 while the number of NOTA votes cast in the constituency was 5,208.