New Delhi: NOTA, or "None of the Above was a favourite with the voters this Delhi Assembly elections with it getting clicked so many times that during one round of counting, it got 70 votes.
"I have never seen NOTA getting so many votes before," said an official at a counting center in the Dwarka constituency. NOTA, or "None of the Above" is the option that enables the voter to officially register a vote of rejection for all candidates who are contesting. If a voter chooses to press NOTA it indicates that the voter has not chosen to vote for any of the parties.
During Matiala's sixth round of counting, NOTA bagged 70 votes, meanwhile, it bagged votes during each count. According to the data by Election Commission, NOTA received about 0.47 per cent votes, which is surprisingly more than Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) – 0.37 per cent, Communist Party of India (CPI) – 0.02 per cent and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) – 0.01 per cent. The NOTA results also became a laughing matter for social media. "NOTA is 15 times more than what the communists have managed," wrote a Twitter user. "NOTA has performed better than some political parties," wrote another.
Meanwhile, for a few voters NOTA was a safe option and saved them from choosing one of the worst candidates.
"It felt like it was about choosing the least terrible option that would have some capacity to deliver on at least the local level issues, which is why I thought of clicking NOTA," said a voter.