442 more votes for NOTA than winning margin in Aurangabad

Aurangabad: MIM leader Imtiaz Jaleel won the Lok Sabha election from the Aurangabad constituency by defeating four-time Shiv Sena MP Chandrakant Khaire by 4492 votes. Having said that, electors from Aurangabad casted 442 votes more than the winning margin for the None Of the Above ( NOTA ) option.

The NOTA is an option for not approving any of the candidates contesting the elections in a given constituency.

However, the number of NOTA votes in Aurangabad 0.4% — far below the national average of 1.0%.

In Maharashtra, a total of 4,86,902 NOTA votes have been recorded, with highest 29,479 in Palghar Lok Sabha constituency. Political observers feel that it should be appreciated that the number of NOTA votes has come down during these elections in Aurangabad.

This general election, a total of 11,93,292 valid votes were casted from Aurangabad of which 4,929 was for NOTA. Against this, in the general elections 2014, 6,372 NOTA votes were polled from Aurangabad out of the total 9,80,357 votes.

Though there is no mechanism to check or ascertain if the same people opted for the NOTA option in the previous elections, an election official said that young voters feel that NOTA is a waste of vote.

Jaleel on Thursday bagged a total of 3,89,042 votes against Khaire who got 3,84,550 votes. Independent candidate Harshvardhan Jadhav ended up third with 2,83,798 votes.

“We should appreciate that this year there was a considerable surge in number of electors from Aurangabad and at the same time a dip in number of NOTA votes. Both the things are to be cheered about,” a district returning officer and collector Uday Chaudhari.

The official said as per ECI directives, alike taking up initiatives and running several awareness campaigns, events were also taken to bring awareness about the use of NOTA.