Indore: Among the several intriguing results emerging from counting of votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections is one in Indore.
The largest Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh with 25.13 lakh voters, Indore was on Tuesday bagged by BJP, retaining its hold on the seat ever since 1989.
BJP candidate Shankar Lalwani polled a massive 12.2 lakh votes (12,267,51 to be precise).
But that was not a surprise.
Guess who came second?
It was NOTA – the option of pressing the None Of The Above button which is there for every voter.
There were 2.18 lakh votes (218,674) in favour of NOTA, the highest ever for any Lok Sabha seat.
That figure may be way, way behind BJP’s vote count, but it’s far more than what other candidates managed.
There were as many as 13 other candidates in the fray in Indore, including 9 Independents.
The most votes polled by a ‘human candidate’ is 51,659 by BSP’s Sanjay Solanki.
To understand how NOTA came second in the Indore election, one has to look at Congress.
The grand old party was let down by Akshay Kanti Bam, who they had fielded in Indore. But Bam withdrew at the eleventh hour and joined the BJP a few days later.
Left in the lurch, Congress appealed to people to cast their vote for NOTA in Indore.
Congress’s campaign for NOTA votes included posters, torch rallies, meetings and social media chats ahead of polling in Indore which took place on May 13.
It’s clear such a pitch by Congress resonated with a couple of lakh voters.
