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Of the 2,67,82,371 votes cast in the state, NOTA garnered 327,911 votes while 2,72,642 votes were in favour of AAP. Shahnawaz Akhtar reports.
The Aam Aadmi Party, which was formed so as to give the people an option of an alternate party, seems did not impress the voters of Rajasthan, as here the none-of-the-above button was selected more times than the broom, the AAP’s symbol.
Results revealed that 1.21 per cent of people selected the NOTA option whereas AAP received 1.018 per cent of the total votes in the desert state. Of the total 2,67,82,371 votes cast, 2,72,642 were cast in favour of AAP while 3,27,911 votes were cast in favour of NOTA.
Even in famous constituencies such as Ajmer, Jhalwar-Baran and Jalore, which are the respective seats of Sachin Pilot, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s son Dushyant Singh and Devji Patel, NOTA received 1.09, 1.66 and 1.03 per cent of the votes.
Banswara registered the highest NOTA votes at 2.94 per cent, followed by Udaipur at 2.24 per cent. This trend also revealed that the NOTA option was used most in ‘reserved’ seats. Banswara is reserved for the Schedule Caste community. Similarly, even in Dausa, which is a seat from which several Meena community leaders were vying for power, 0.91 per cent voters used NOTA.
Senior journalists throwing light on the issue said, “Since the NOTA option was provided, most people used it.”
After the results, the AAP members accepted the party’s defeat gracefully, saying their candidates should have got more votes. “We have no issues with this verdict. In this election, the people made up their mind to give a a clear majority to one party and the Rajasthan assembly polls are also a clear indication that people wanted to vote only for one party,” said Mulkraj Singh, an AAP activist.
Complete Coverage: Elections 2014