NOTA votes goes up to 2.25 lakh in Assembly polls

​Hyderabad: NOTA votes registered a whopping 47 per cent growth to 2.25 lakh in the latest Telangana State Assembly elections compared to the 2014 polls. A total of 2,24,709 voters pressed the NOTA (None of the Above) option in the electronic voting machines, rejecting all the candidates in their respective constituencies as against 1.52 lakh in the 2014 elections.

NOTA accounted for 1.1 per cent of the around 2.05 crore votes cast in the December 7 elections. According to the Election Commission data, as many as 15 BJP candidates polled lesser votes than NOTA in their constituencies. The party contested in 118 seats out of 119 segments in the State and won one. The "vote share" of NOTA was more than that of the CPI and Kodandaram-led Telangana Jana Samithi put together.

Both the parties which were part of the Congress-led four-party People's Front drew a blank. CPI which contested three seats secured 83,215 votes, a vote share of 0.4 per cent, and TJS that fielded candidates in four seats got 95,364 votes representing 0.5 per cent. Wardhanpet constituency, where Arrori Ramesh of TRS won, clocked the highest number of NOTA votes -- 5,864. On the contrary, there was no NOTA votes in Sircilla constituency from where K T Rama Rao, son of Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrashekar Rao, won by over 89,000 votes. In, Amberpet segment the NOTA votes stood 1,462, more than the 1,016 vote margin of defeat suffered by BJP candidate and party floor leader in the dissolved Assembly Kishan Reddy.

Reddy lost to Kaleru Venkatesham of TRS. The State recorded a polling per centage of 73.2 per cent of the total 2.80 crore voters. TRS returned to power clinching a thumping victory, securing 88 segments in 119-member Assembly.