NOTA makes presence felt

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 23

The NOTA (None of The Above) votes in the constituency have gone up by almost three and a half times in comparison to that of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This time, 8,713 number of votes were cast in favour of NOTA, which is 1.02 per cent of the total votes polled.

In 2014, NOTA garnered 2,533 votes (around 0.25 per cent). There has been a spurt in recent years in the number of votes cast in favour of NOTA.Indeed, it has increased exponentially. This could well be an indicator of loss of trust in all political parties and candidates.

Advocate Kuljit Singh Malawali said, “The voters are not happy with the choice of candidates. They have no option but to register their protest by pressing NOTA.” The Election Commission should come up with a system so that NOTA votes do have an impact on the overall result.

Meanwhile, the percentage of NOTA has gone down to 0.48 per cent from 0.54 per cent in the Khadoor Sahib constituency, result of which was declared today.

In the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, apart from candidates of Congress, BJP, AAP and CPI, only two candidates, Sham Lal Gandhiwadi and Sunil Kumar Mattu (both independents) have managed to get more than 3,000 votes.

Nine contestants got less than 500 votes, while 10 candidates were polled between 500 and 1,000 votes. Except Congress candidate Gurjit Singh Aujla and BJP candidate Hardeep Singh Puri, all other 28 contestants lost their deposits. Chander Kumar (independent) received he lowest number of 233 votes.