In the recently held Gujarat Assembly elections, NOTA (None of the Above) received 9% fewer votes than expected, yet it polled more than the victory margin on four seats.
5.01 lakh votes, or 1.6% of all votes cast, went to NOTA, outnumbering votes for larger parties including the BSP (0.5%), the Samajwadi Party (0.29%), the AIMIM (0.29%), and the Nationalist Congress Party (0.24%). 5.51 lakh NOTA votes were cast in the 2017 elections, constituting 1.84 per cent of all votes.
There were 1,530 NOTA votes cast in the temple town of Somnath, where the current Congress MLA Vimal Chudasma narrowly won reelection by 922 votes. Similarly, the biggest number of NOTA votes were cast on the Khedbrahma seat, where the Congress candidate Tushar Chaudhary won by a margin of 1,664 votes.
The number of NOTA votes cast was 3,942 in Rapar and 3,147 in Dasada, where BJP candidates won by a low margin of 577 and 2,179 votes, respectively. While the Khedbrahma seat had the most NOTA votes, Data and Chhota Udepur are among the top three seats with the most NOTA votes, each with 5,213 and 5,093 votes, respectively.
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