The NOTA (None of the Above) option seems to have been favoured by more voters in the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State. The number of voters who chose this option is more than the votes polled by the seven smaller parties.
The Nilgiris (Reserved) stood first, with 46,559 voters choosing the option. Sivaganga is the lowest, with 4,748. The second highest was in Sriperumbudur, where 26,096 votes went to the option.
Nilgiris Collector and District Election Officer P. Sankar said the development was most unexpected.
The absence of a BJP candidate and the 2G scam surrounding DMK nominee A. Raja are cited as reasons for more voters going for the NOTA in the Nilgiris, members of the business community say.
Frustrated by their inability to have someone from the Badaga community to contest the polls this time, more voters opted for the NOTA, and this figured prominently in the social media immediately after the results were out.
G. Janardhanan, president of the Public Awareness Association of Udhagamandalam, said the NOTA came in handy for a large number of people who felt that elected representatives were not showing any interest in either the welfare of the district or its people.
Official sources said that in some parts like Gudalur, people chose this option to highlight their grievances.
When it went to the polls on May 16, Tamil Nadu had 5.51 crore voters and 73.67 per cent of them exercised their franchise.
During the counting, the NOTA maintained a steady share of 1.4-1.5 per cent right from the beginning.
Only the AIADMK, the DMK, the BJP, the DMDK, the PMK, the Congress and the MDMK were ahead of votes that went to the NOTA. Independents had a share of 2.2 per cent votes. The NOTA votes were ahead of those polled by the Puthia Tamizhagam, the Manitha Neya Makkal Katchi, the CPI, the CPI(M), the IUML, the AAP and the BSP.
A considerable number of votes that went to the NOTA in all 39 constituencies caused apprehensions in political circles that the option could be used by caste Hindus to shun the candidates of the listed communities.
In the Nilgiris, the nomination of the BJP’s nominee was rejected because the papers were not in order.
With results awaited for 25 seats and trends available for all seats, the NOTA had 5,54,389 votes or 1.4 per cent of the total votes polled.
The NOTA option was provided for the first time in this election. Earlier, it was introduced in the by-election to the Yercaud Assembly constituency. During the last Lok Sabha elections, those who did not want to vote for any candidate were asked to opt for the provision under Section 49 (O), under which they had to fill up a form. This did not go down well with the voters, as they feared that their identity would be exposed in the presence of party agents.
The reserved constituencies where the NOTA registered a five-digit tally were Thiruvallur, Villuppuram, the Nilgiris, Nagapattinam, Kancheepuram, Chidambaram and Tenkasi.
( With additional reporting from T. Ramakrishnan in Chennai and D. Radhakrishnan in Udhagamandalam )
