Hyderabad: As Telangana braces for a tri-polar contest among the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samiti and opposition parties Congress and the BJP, the NOTA (None of the Above) option in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in the election could well be a gamechanger and a virtual kingmaker in the new government.
The NOTA is considered to be a weapon for the voters if they do not like any of the candidates in the election fray. It was this NOTA option that decided the future of six candidates in the 2018 Telangana Legislative Assembly elections. It is noteworthy that NOTA got more votes than the candidates who won on the six assembly seats.
Congress candidate Athram Sakku won the Asifabad constituency in the previous assembly election by securing 65,788 votes. The nearest rival Koa Lakshmi (TRS now BRS) got 65,617 votes while the NOTA option polled as many as 2711 votes as per official figures. That means Sakku won with a margin of merely 171 votes.
Had it not been for NOTA, Lakshmi was the clear winner thereby demonstrating the role played by NOTA option. Likewise, in Dharmapuri, BRS's candidate Koppula Eshwar got 70,579 votes. The nearest rival Adluri Laxman Kumar (Congress) secured 70,138 votes. Ishwar won with a margin of 441 votes while NOTA polled 2,597 votes leaving Congress candidate agitated.
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In Ibrahimpatnam, BRS candidate Manchireddy Kishan Reddy got 72,581 votes, while his nearest rival Malreddy Rangareddy (BSP) got 72,205 votes and NOTA polled as many as 1,145 votes. Kaleru Venkatesh, a candidate of BRS, won as MLA in Amberpet by securing 61,558 votes. The nearest rival G. Kishan Reddy got 60,542 votes.
Venkatesh got a lead of 1,016 votes while NOTA polled 1,462 votes. In Kodada, BRS candidate Bollam Mallaiah Yadav got 89,115 votes while his nearest rival Nalamada Padmavathi Reddy got 88,359 votes. Mallaiah Yadav won by a margin of 756 votes, a margin less than the votes polled by NOTA at 1,240 votes. In Vaira constituency, independent candidate Lavudya Ramulu won by securing 52,650 votes.
His nearest rival Banoth Madanlal got 50,637 votes while NOTA polled 2,360. Significantly, among the 119 legislative constituencies of Telangana, NOTA has not stood at the last place anywhere. In the previous Telangana assembly elections, NOTA got the highest number of 5,842 votes in Vardhannapet than all the constituencies.
It is noteworthy that it is 3.09% of the votes registered in the constituency. NOTA was at the third place in Huzurabad. Pertinently, in 2009, a PIL was filed in the Supreme Court after the Centre did not accept the NOTA proposed by the Election Commission. In 2013, the apex court directed to implement NOTA and it was used throughout the country in the 2014 general elections.
