32,647 press NOTA button

Kuldeep Chauhan
Tribune News Service
Shimla, May 23

None-of-The-Above (NOTA) button continued its lead this year also as 32,647 voters (3.40 per cent), 2.5 per cent up from the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, pressed the button, rejecting all candidates. In 2014, 29,156 (0.9 per cent) voters had pressed the NOTA button.

According to the Election Commission of India’s results declared for the four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal, Kangra voters led the way this year as well. As many as 11,327 voters as compared to 8,704 in 2014 pressed the button.

NOTA button introduced for the first time in the 2014 elections to satisfy those who don't want to vote any candidate.

In the Shimla reserved seat, 8,357 voters (0.91 per cent) pressed the NOTA button, rejecting Suresh Kashyap from Shimla, who won by a record 3,27,515 votes. Over 7,787 voters in Shimla had pressed the NOTA button in 2014.

In Mandi, 5,298 voters (0.56) pressed the NOTA button, while 6,191 had voted for NOTA in 2014 when Ram Swaroop defeated Congress candidate Pratibha Singh, wife of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh.

As many as 7,865 pressed NOTA button in Hamirpur. In 2014, 6,473 voters favoured NOTA when AAP’s Kamal Kant Batra, mother of the 1999 Kargil war hero Capt Vikram Batra, was also in the fray.