E-Paper
NOTA finishes third in tribal-dominated seat in Madhya Pradesh
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About 3.89% of voters rejected all the candidates and opted for ‘none of the above (NOTA)’ in a scheduled tribal reserved seat in Jobat, Madhya Pradesh. BJP candidate Sulochana Rawat won from the seat with a margin of 6104 votes against Mahesh Patel of Congress. NOTA finished third with 5611 votes.
While in the other two assembly seats- Raigaon and Prithvipur - only 1% of people opted for NOTA, officials said.
In the last election, an independent candidate, Vishal Rawat, son of Sulochana Rawat, finished third with more than 22,000 votes. A Gujarat based Bhartiya Tribal Party also tried luck in this election from Jobat. The candidate Sardar Parmar of the party received 3056 votes only.
Experts said tribals are getting aware of their rights and know how to exercise their voting power.
“Tribals have started discussing the capability of candidates. Now, educated members of the tribal community want to talk about their rights. But candidates of political parties’ are still busy taking the agenda of their party ahead. They failed to impress voters which resulted in people opting for NOTA,” said Vikram Achaliya, a tribal expert.
Jai Adiwasi Yuva Sangathan’s Anand Rai said, “Now, tribals want a party which focuses on the core issues of the tribals because they realize that Congress and BJP are not concerned about their issues. Even, these parties want to finish their identity so some people exercised their vote in favour of NOTA.”
However, Congress leaders said the administration played a game and diverted the votes of Congress to NOTA. Congress spokesperson JP Dhanopia said, “On the machine, the first button belongs to Congress candidate Mahesh Patel and last button to NOTA. When a layman asks for assistance to vote for Congress, the official would ask them to press the first button without mentioning whether from the top or bottom. People pressed NOTA and that’s why it finished third.”
Similarly, BJP feels that people pressed NOTA because they were unhappy with Congress.
“The voters are unhappy with fake promises of Congress and that’s why they opted for it to ensure the defeat but the trend will change as after the BJP candidate wins the election, these people will realize that BJP is a fair option for the development of the belt,” said Ashish Agrawal, spokesperson BJP.
