Did BJP lose Madhya Pradesh to Nota and not Congress?
Nota votes could have gone to either side but had half of them polled in favour of the BJP at 10 narrow margin seats, the Madhya Pradesh election results could have been different.
In Short
- Nota got 1.4 per cent or 5.42 lakh votes in Madhya Pradesh election
- BJP lost nearly a dozen seats in MP where Nota polled more than victory margin
- Congress got 114 seats in MP while BJP won 109 seats
Fewer elections would have been more closely contested than the just concluded assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The BJP was defeated by the Congress in both the states but the margin of defeat for the party was not big. On many seats, the victory margin for the Congress was less than Nota (none of the above) votes.
Let's take up the case of Madhya Pradesh.
At least 22 assembly seats were decided in the Madhya Pradesh assembly election by a victory margin of less than the votes polled under Nota. Twelve of these seats decided against the BJP, which fell six short of the Congress's tally of 114 after counting of votes that went on for over 24 hours.
Ten of the seats where the BJP lost by a margin lower than the Nota votes were:
Suwasra: The BJP lost this seat by a margin of 350 votes. Nota votes polled at Suwarsa were 2,976. Suwarsa falls under the Mandsaur Lok Sabha constituency. Mandsaur was the epicentre of farmers' protests last year. It was the only seat the Congress won under Mandsaur Lok Sabha seat.
Jabalpur North: The BJP lost this seat to the Congress by 578 votes while Nota got 1,209 votes. The BJP polled 49,467 votes to 50,045 votes polled by the Congress.
Damoh: The BJP lost this seat to the Congress. The margin of defeat was just 798 votes -- BJP got 78,199 votes against Congress's 78,997. Nota votes were counted to be 1,299.
Biaora: The BJP lost this seat to Congress by a margin of 826 votes. Nota votes here were 1,481. The Congress got 75,569 votes against 74,743 votes polled by the BJP.
Rajpur: The defeat margin for the BJP against the Congress on this seat was only 932 votes while Nota votes were counted to be 3,358.
Mandhata: The BJP lost this seat to the Congress by a margin of 1,237 votes. The Nota votes here were 1,575.
Nepanagar: The BJP lost this seat, otherwise famous for its newsprint paper mills, to the Congress by 1,265 votes while Nota polled 2,551 votes.
Jobat: The defeat margin for the BJP against the Congress here was 2,057 votes. The Nota polled 5,139 votes.
Gunnour: The BJP lost this seat by 1,984 votes while Nota polled 3,734 votes. The BJP got 55,676 votes to Congress's 57,658 votes.
Petalawad: The BJP lost this seat to the Congress by a margin of 5,000 votes while Nota got 148 more votes.
This data crunching, however, comes with a disclaimer that Nota votes could have gone to any of the parties including the BJP and the Congress.
Had half of the Nota votes in the given 10 constituencies gone in favour of the BJP, the party would have won six more seats -- and equal reduction would have been in the Congress's final tally.
In Madhya Pradesh, total Nota votes were 5,42,295 or 1.4 per cent of polled votes. Interestingly, the BJP polled more popular votes than the Congress in Madhya Pradesh.
Incidentally, in Rajasthan, at least 15 constituencies polled more Nota votes than the victory margin of the wining candidates. Kalicharan Saraf, the health minister in the Vasundhara Raje government, won his seat by 1,704 while Nota votes were 2,371.
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