Lok Sabha elections: RSS urges voters to go in for NOTA-bandi

MUMBAI: On Sunday morning, Borivli resident Vivek Mujumdar had unexpected guests: a team of local RSS swayamsevaks and a few others from Parivar outfits. To his surprise, their request, Vivek said, was that all his family members, neighbours and friends should cast their votes this Lok Sabha election, but to a candidate of their choice.

They must not opt for the NOTA (none of the above) option, the activists urged. “Just forget there’s a NOTA button on the voting machine,” one of the RSS workers told Vivek.


Along with opposition, NOTA has emerged as a challenge for the Parivar, of which BJP is a political offshoot; RSS and all its groups such as ABVP are campaigning door-to-door against it. State elections in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan last December showed that victory margins of several candidates who won narrowly against BJP nominees were smaller than the number of votes that NOTA had “obtained.” In MP and Karnataka, in fact, loss of power was attributed, in part, to NOTA as BJP fell short of a majority by a few seats.

RSS spokesperson Arun Kumar said, “We have been campaigning against NOTA ever since it was introduced. NOTA is nothing but an attempt to dislodge the faith of people in the democratic process and divert valuable votes from candidates in the fray. Election is the process of choosing the better candidate to help democracy and governance mature and thus make progress. NOTA is against the spirit of democratic reforms.” Asked if the campaign was to help BJP, Kumar said, “Not at all. In fact, it will help the candidate most likely to win, irrespective of party.”

RSS leader Manmohan Vaidya said, “It is voters’ responsibility to ensure the best available candidate is chosen instead of wasting valuable votes to NOTA, which does not nourish any positive spirit.”

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had, earlier this year, said NOTA could not only sideline the best available candidate but help the worst candidates to win. A RSS office-bearer in the Mumbai-Konkan region said the door-to-door campaign will highlight its ill-effects. “NOTA does not help create responsible voters, and normally balanced voters who can opt for positive and dynamic change can fall into its trap,” he stated.

Political analysts pointed to cases where BJP had suffered. In Badami in Karnataka, B Sriramulu lost to the Congress nominee by just 1,697 votes. Here, the NOTA count stood at 2,007. While a similar story unfolded in Gadag, in three other assembly seats (Hirekerur, Kundagol and Maski), NOTA votes were almost double the BJP’s margin of defeat. BJP fell 9 seats short of a majority of 113 in a House of 224 in the southern state.

In 22 seats in MP, NOTA votes were greater than the victory margins. Twelve of these seats were won by Congress, nine by BJP and one by an independent. In Rajasthan too, voters opting for NOTA made all the difference in 12 seats, affecting both Congress and BJP. In Jaipur’s Malviya Nagar, for instance, Congress candidate lost to BJP by 1,704 votes, while NOTA “gained” 2,371 votes, Election Commission statistics show.