NOTA outperforms 25 of 59 candidates in five civic bodies

OPTION WAS CHOSEN BY 7,555 VOTERS; THOUGH IT WAS LESS THAN 1% OF TOTAL VOTES CASTED, IT WAS MORE THAN THE COMBINED VOTES OF 15 WORST PERFORMERS

ROHTAK: NOTA (none of the above), which was introduced for the first time in the civic body polls in Haryana, has outperformed 25 out of 59 mayoral candidates, the data of the state election commission has revealed.

In the five mayoral elections held in Rohtak, Hisar, Panipat, Karnal and Yamunanagar, the NOTA option was chosen by 7,555 voters. Though this was less than 1% of the total votes casted, it was more than the combined votes registered by 15 worst performers of the elections.

Haryana poll body had treated NOTA as a ‘fictional candidate’, making it mandatory for the candidates to get more votes than it in order to secure a win. This was for the first time that NOTA had an actual significance in the electoral history of the country, giving voters the right to reject all the candidates. Earlier, a candidate would still be declared a winner if he got lesser votes than NOTA. But this time, the Haryana poll body had announced that it would hold elections again if NOTA gets more votes than the candidates. In the re-elections, the candidates who got lesser votes than NOTA would not have been allowed to file a nomination.

In Panipat, NOTA got 3,008 votes. With 701 votes in Hisar, NOTA was ahead of 13 of the total 22 candidates who were in fray for the post of mayor. The option garnered 1,068 votes in Rohtak, which was more than the vote count of five out of 12 candidates, 1,746 votes in Yamunanagar and 1,032 votes in Karnal.