Assembly Polls 2022: With AAP Making Inroad Gujarat & Himachal Pradesh, A Look NOTA's Role In 2017 Polls

BJP and Congress might have been voters’ popular choices in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh historically, but a certain category has scored more than any other party in both states in previous elections. The None of the Above (NOTA) option on the EVM machine was the fourth most popular choice of the people across 115 of the 182 seats in Gujarat and 12 of the 68 seats in Himachal Pradesh in the 2017 polls.

The trend has gained significance in view of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s attempts to make inroads in both states, which have traditionally seen a bipolar contest.

In Gujarat, 1.84 per cent of voters in the state favoured NOTA in 2017. Simply put, about 5.51 lakh out of the 3 crore voters in Gujarat did not prefer the choice of candidates they had.

Voters favoured the BJP (49.05%) followed by Congress (41.44%). The Independent candidates, 3 of whom won out of the 794 who contested, were the only group that scored higher than the NOTA.  AAP’s vote count was even less than NOTA in some constituencies like–Ankleshwar, Botad, Manjalpur, Chhota Udaipur, and Dasada.

Similarly in Himachal Pradesh, the percentage of votes in cast in favour of NOTA was 0.9 per cent, with 34,232 of 37.84 lakh voters not favouring any candidate.

Here also NOTA’s vote share was the fourth highest, after the BJP (48.79%), Congress (41.68%) and CPI(M) (1.47%).