Indore (Madhya Pradesh): NOTA polled over 2.18 lakh votes in the Indore Lok Sabha constituency. According to the Election Commission of India (data), NOTA has polled 2, 18, 674 lakh votes, which is 15 per cent of the total votes.
Earlier, Gopalganj in Bihar held the record for NOTA. Indore now has the highest number of NOTA votes in the country. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, voters in Gopalganj, Bihar had cast 51,607 votes in favour of NOTA.
However BJP candidate Shankar Lalwani won the seat by a margin of 1008077 votes. Lalwani polled 1226751 votes while BSP candidate Sanjay Solanki stood second after he bagged just 51659 votes. There was no Congress candidate in the fray.
NOTA allows the voters to officially register a "vote of rejection" for all candidates contesting in an election. It was introduced in September 2013 following decision by a Supreme Court decision.
Indore has been a BJP bastion and has been represented by former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has clarified that even though votes cast as NOTA are counted, they are considered as invalid votes so they will not change the outcome of the election process. They are not taken into account for calculating the total valid votes and will not be considered for determining the forfeiture of deposit.
