3,714 voters pressed none of the above button

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, June 4

In Amritsar Lok Sabha, out of 16,11,263 voters only 9,05,825 (56.06 per cent) exercised their right to vote for electing their favourite candidate in the 18th Lok Sabha polls.

Nevertheless, not all of the electorate, who voted during the elections, polled for the 31 candidates contesting this time. As many as 3,714 voters pressed the NOTA (none of the above) button rejecting all candidates while showing their utter disappointment with them.

The NOTA option was introduced by the Election Commission of India following the directions of the Apex Court in 2013 in order to protect the secrecy of those who decide not to vote. It gave the option to voters to select the NOTA option on the EVM if they wanted to express their displeasure with candidates and had the right to reject them.

Barring the key candidates in Amritsar, no other aspirant, including 18 Independents, crossed the NOTA figure. The option secured sixth highest number of votes. Even national party CPI’s candidate Daswinder Kaur could not surpass this number. She got only 2,481 votes this time securing eighth position. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, she had managed to secure 16,335 votes while 8,763 voters opted for NOTA. In 2017 by-election she got 17,886 votes while NOTA was opted by 9,747 voters.

First five positions in the poll results were held by Congress’ two-time Member of Parliament Gurjeet Singh Aujla, AAP’s Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, BJP’s Taranjit Singh Sandhu, SAD’s Anil Joshi and Emaan Singh Mann of SAD (Amritsar).