Introduced for the first time on EVMs in the Bihar Assembly poll, the None Of The Above (NOTA) option proved more popular for the voters than many mainstream political parties, including Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha(Secular) and AIMIM of Asauddin Owaisi. In 38 constituencies, NOTA was the “third choice,” while in one it registered about 9,000 hits.
According to the State Election Commission report, out of total 3,80,97, 288 voters who exercised their franchise, altogether 7.61 lakh (2.5 per cent) of them pressed the NOTA button as their first choice. This has become the maximum number of NOTA votes polled in the Bihar poll so far.
