Six lakh voters in State preferred NOTA option

BHUBANESWAR: After introduction of ‘Non of The Above’ (NOTA) option in the EVM machine by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the first time to attract more voters, more than six lakh people have opted for the option in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the State, which is higher in number than the votes of 10 parties.

In the Lok Sabha polls, 1.5 per cent (3, 32,780) voters have opted for NOTA option, while 1.3 per cent (2, 71,336) voters preferred to punch the button in the State Assembly elections.

According to the ECI sources, Nabarangpur Lok Sabha seat has witnessed country’s second highest NOTA votes (44,408) after Tamilnadu’s Nilgiris Lok Sabha seat (46,559). In Odisha, other Lok Sabha seats like Koraput (33232), Keonjhar (26065), Mayurbhanj (23517), Balangir (21043) and Kalahandi (20880) have witnessed huge NOTA voting.  

Interestingly, NOTA votes of the Lok Sabha seats were higher than the total votes polled by five parties like OJM-0.2 per cent (44,397), CPM-0.2 per cent (35,968), AITC -0.1 per cent (30,717), CPI-0.3 per cent (65,667) and AAP-0.7 per cent (1, 47,898).

Similarly, five political parties have secured fewer votes than NOTA in Assembly polls. The parties include SP-0.2 per cent (36,779), SAMO-0.2 per cent (32,315), SUCI-0.2 per cent (48,880), CPM-0.4 per cent (80,274), SKD-0.4 per cent (86,539).

Notably, around 1.1 per cent (60 lakh) voters in the country opted for NOTA, which were more than the total number of votes secured by 21 parties, in the Lok Sabha polls 2014.