News18
The ‘None of the above’ or NOTA votes – usually polled when a voter decides to not go for any of the leaders fighting the elections – have seen a drop across 10 major states while on eight, they were higher than 2019, according to official numbers analysed by News18.
There are 18 states that have Lok Sabha seats in double digits, collectively accountable for 501 seats out of 543 in the House. For ease of understanding, these states have been considered in the analysis. Across these 18 states, the NOTA votes in 2019 were 62.82 lakh. In 2024, the total number of votes dropped to 59.02 lakh.
Among the states that reported a rise in NOTA votes was Madhya Pradesh. Increased by 1.91 lakh votes, the state reported 3.40 lakh NOTA votes in 2019 that has gone up to 5.32 lakh in 2024. The main reason behind this was Congress supporting NOTA in Indore, after its candidate ditched the party at the last moment and moved to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The seat saw just 5,045 votes for NOTA in 2019, as against 2.18 lakh in 2024.
In 2019, among the seats with the reported highest NOTA votes in the state was Ratlam – also listed in the top 10 seats for the same across the county. However, this time, the NOTA votes on the seat have dropped from 35,431 to 31,735.
With 90,126 fewer NOTA votes, Uttar Pradesh also seemed to be more decisive this time from 2019. However, in both the years, the state was at the second position in terms of absolute NOTA votes, with Bihar topping the charts in 2024 and 2019. This time, Bihar saw almost nine lakh NOTA votes, over 80,000 more from 2019.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow and Faizabad seats, NOTA votes have dropped. In Faizabad, the NOTA votes have gone down from 9,388 in 2019 to 7,536 this time. In Lucknow, the drop was minor from 7,416 to 7,350.
Varanasi, Anantnag Saw significant Increase in NOTA Votes
Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag has seen one of the sharpest increase in NOTA votes – from 1,412 in 2019 to 6,223 now. Srinagar also reported a rise in NOTA votes – from 1,566 in 2019 to 5,998 now. On the other hand, in Baramulla, the NOTA votes have reported a significant drop – from 4,984 to 8,128.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, the NOTA votes have gone up from 4,037 in 2019 to 8,478 now – more than doubled.
Although with a small voter base, when compared to other Lok Sabha constituencies, the NOTA votes in islands of India – Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep – have also increased.
On the other hand, two of Bihar and India’s top seats from 2019 NOTA vote list have seen drop in these votes. In 2019, out of the five seats with highest NOTA votes, two were from Bihar – Gopalganj and Paschim Champaran. Both these seats have reported a drop in NOTA votes. Paschim Champaran, which elected BJP MP Sanjay Jaiswa for a fourth time, has seen NOTA votes drop from almost 46,000 to just 11,000. Gopalganj was at the top position for NOTA votes in 2019, this time it has seen 8,797 fewer votes against political parties.
More Votes for NOTA in Assam, Kerala and Gujarat
Apart from Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, there were six more states where NOTA votes have increased from 2019 – Assam, Kerala, Gujarat, Odisha, Jharkhand and Haryana. In Assam, the rise is close to 60,000 votes, resulting in 0.19 percentage point jump in its vote share in the total polled votes. In Kerala, it is around 53,000 or 0.28 percentage points higher. Gujarat has reported a jump of more than 45,000 NOTA votes, increasing its vote share by 0.16 percentage points.
In Odisha, the NOTA votes have gone up by 13,764 votes. But in terms of percentage of the votes polled, it is about 0.02 percentage points fewer than in 2019.
In Haryana, the NOTA votes have gone up by 1,411 – making no change in the vote share of the option in the total votes polled.
NOTA Votes halved in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh
In Punjab, the NOTA votes have more than halved from 2019, resulting in 0.28 percentage points drop in its vote share. In 2019, the state gave 1.54 lakh NOTA votes that reduced to 66,263 in 2024. From 1.13 per cent in 2019, the share of NOTA votes in 2024 was just 0.49 per cent.
Andhra Pradesh, which voted back Telugu Desam Party (TDP) to power in 2024, has seen the highest drop in votes for NOTA — about 2.30 lakh. In 2019, the state saw 4.68 lakh votes to NOTA that dropped to 2.38 lakh. Interestingly, one of the Lok Sabha seats from the state, Aruku, was among the top five NOTA polled constituencies in 2019. While all other four seats have reported a drop in NOTA votes, the votes in this seat have gone up by 2,493 votes.
WHAT IS NOTA?
The Election Commission of India introduced NOTA in October 2013 based on a Supreme Court order from September 2013.
The main objective of the option was to enable electors who do not wish to vote for any of the candidates to exercise their right not to vote for any candidate without violation of the secrecy of their decision.