Assuming that most of the NOTA votes in MP came from disgruntled BJP voters, especially from the high castes, who were irked by the Centre’s SC/ST Amendment Act, NOTA went on to dwarf several other political outfits, including the AAP and Samajwadi Party.
Had the BJP been successful in rallying all the NOTA voters to its side in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, it would have smiled away to a victory, which would have given Shivraj Singh Chouhan a record fourth term.
MyNation’s deep dive analysis of data from the Election Commission of India (ECI) revealed that the BJP would have added at least 11 more seats to its tally of 109, and that would have landed it a majority figure of 120. Conversely, the Congress's tally of 114 would have gone down by the same number.
Assuming that most of the ‘none of the above’ (NOTA) votes in MP came from disgruntled BJP voters, especially from the high castes, who were irked by the Centre’s SC/ST Amendment Act, NOTA went on to dwarf several other political outfits, including the AAP, which is in power in Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh behemoth Samajwadi Party in the .
1. In the Biaora Assembly segment, the BJP’s sitting MLA Narayan Singh Panwar lost to his Congress rival by just 826 votes, while the NOTA accounted for 1,481 votes. Panwar had won the seat last time by a margin of 3,088 votes.
2. In Damoh, the BJP’s sitting MLA and the state’s finance minister Jayant Malaiya lost by a close margin of just 798 votes, while the number of NOTA votes were 1,299. He had won the seat last time with a comfortable margin of 4,953 votes.
3. In the Gunnour Assembly segment, the BJP candidate lost to his closest rival from the Congress by a margin which was half the number of NOTA votes. Rajesh Kumar Verma lost by 1,984 votes, while NOTA stood at 3,734. In 2013, Mahendra Singh of the BJP had won the seat by a margin of 1,337 votes.
4. In the Gwalior (South) seat, the NOTA stood at almost 13 times the margin with which the BJP candidate lost. Sitting MLA Narayan Singh Kushwaha of the BJP lost by 121 votes, while the NOTA votes were 1,550. In 2013, he had won by a margin of over 16,000 votes.
5. The Jabalpur (North) seat also presented a similar quandary for the BJP. Sitting BJP MLA Sharad Jain lost by 578 votes, while NOTA votes stood at 1,209. He had won the seat in 2013 by 33,663 votes.
6. In Jobat, sitting BJP MLA Madhosh Singh, who had won the seat in 2013 by over 11,000 votes, lost by half the number of NOTA votes. While he lost by 2,056 votes, NOTA numbered 5,139 of the total votes.
7. The Mandhata seat presented a close contest between NOTA and the losing margin. The BJP candidate lost by 1,236 votes when NOTA stood at 1,575.
8. Nepanagar too saw a close contest between the two numbers. The BJP candidate Narendra Singh Tomar lost by 1,236 votes. He could easily have been saved the embarrassment if the 1,575 NOTA votes would have gone to him.
9. In Rajnagar, the BJP’s Arvind Pateriya could have easily drubbed sitting Congress MLA Vikram Singh had his party managed the NOTA votes in its favour. Pateriya lost by 732 votes, while NOTA stood at 2,485.
10. The BJP missed the Rajpur (ST) seat by a slender margin of just 932 votes, while 3,558 NOTA votes were polled. Sitting Congress MLA Bala Bachchan won this seat in 2013 also, by a margin of 11,196 votes.
11. In Suwasra, the Congress candidate defeated his BJP rival by a wafer-thin margin of 350 votes. The BJP’s Radheshyam Patidar could have drubbed the Congress’s Hardeep Singh Dung had NOTA votes not been as high as 2,976.
Two other seats could have seen a different fate. In Pichhore, the BJP candidate lost by 2,675 votes while NOTA was close on the heels with 2,551 votes. Similar was the scene at the Sanwer seat where the BJP lost by 2,591 seats, while NOTA was close with 2,591 seats.
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