Data Analysis: Not many takers for NOTA in Delhi
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 18, 2020
NOTA polled 0.46% vote share in the recently concluded Delhi assembly elections. Though this is slightly more than the 0.39% polled in 2015, NOTA doesn’t have many takers in Delhi despite being an Urban state.
Inthe recently concluded Delhi Assembly elections, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won alandslide by winning 62 out of the 70 assembly seats.  The AAP polled 53.6% of the total
votes polled, followed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whichpolled 38.5% of the total vote share. The BJP won the remaining 8 seats. Thevote share of AAP has reduced by 0.7% and that of BJP increased by 6.3%compared to the 2015 Assembly elections.
As far as ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) is concerned,  the 2020 Delhi assembly elections are the 45 assembly elections since the inception of NOTA in 2013. The 2014 & 2019 Lok Sabha Elections also included the NOTA option on the EVM.  This is the 3 Assembly elections in Delhi, after NOTA was introduced in 2013. In that sense, Delhi is the only place where NOTA was on the EVM in three different assembly elections. So, what is the NOTA story of the 2020 Delhi Assembly elections? Here is a detailed analysis.
Negligible increase in the vote share of NOTA compared to 2015 Assembly elections
Theshare of NOTA votes has been traditionally less in Delhi Assembly elections.
Asnoted in an earlier
story on Factly, the share of NOTA has been decreasing overthe years.
However,the share of NOTA votes in 2020 Delhi Assembly elections has slightly improvedcompared to previous election. NOTA polled 43,108 votes out of the total 92.85lakh votes polled i.e. 0.46%. While it is not as high as the share in 2013, ithas improved compared to 2015.  Furthermore, 2020 is the first assemblyelections in Delhi post the introduction of a dedicated
symbol for NOTA in 2015.
Meanwhile,the vote share of NOTA has also increased in the Lok Sabha constituencies ofDelhi in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, compared to 2014. During 2014 Lok Sabhaelections, NOTA polled 0.47% across the seven  Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi, while thisincreased to 0.52% in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Share
of NOTA for General Seats on par with Reserved seats
DelhiLegislative Assembly has 12 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) out of thetotal 70 seats. Rest of the 58 seats are general seats.
Unlikethe significant difference in NOTA vote share between Reserved and Generalseats in 2013 Delhi assembly elections, the difference is negligible in othertwo assembly elections i.e. 2015 and 2020.
Asfor Lok Sabha constituencies, Delhi has one reserved seat out of the 7 LokSabha constituencies.
Amongthese 6 constituencies, New Delhi Constituency has the highest NOTA share, at parwith the reserved North West Delhi with 0.70%. It was also the higher NOTApolling General seat in 2014 Lok Sabha elections with 0.58%.
In
none of the seats, NOTA polled more than the Victory margin in 2020
Like in the case of  2015 assembly elections, even in the 2020 Delhi assembly elections, NOTA votes did not exceed the victory margin in any of the seats.
Thehighest place for NOTA in an assembly constituency in the 2020 elections was 3.This was in Palam which is a general category seat. The winner from AAP polledaround 92 thousand votes followed by the candidate from BJP who polled around60 thousand votes. There were 848 votes polled for NOTA. Indian NationalCongress, which was in third position in most of the seats has not contestedfrom this seat.
Thehighest vote share of NOTA in an assembly constituency in 2020 was in ModelTown where 0.84% of votes went to NOTA. This constituency was also the highestin 2015 with 0.7% votes for NOTA.
Interms of victory margins, the closest NOTA has polled was for Bijwasan seat in2020, won by AAP candidate with a margin of 753 votes. There were 448 votespolled for NOTA in this constituency. However, NOTA is ranked 7 here and there were other political partieswith higher votes which influenced the final outcome.
Anotherconstituency with a closer margin was Laxmi Nagar, won by BJP with a margin of880 votes. NOTA has polled 550 votes here and stood in 4 position.
However,in 2013 Delhi Assembly elections there were 4 constituencies which has NOTApolling higher seats than that of the victory margin. In 2013, there were 4constituencies which polled more than 1% for NOTA with highest being 1.2% inRajouri Garden & Sultanpur Majra.  InModel Town, NOTA polled 0.8% of the votes in 2013.
Inboth the Lok Sabha elections i.e. 2014 and 2015, the victory margin issignificantly higher than that of the votes polled by NOTA across all the sevenconstituencies.
Despite
being largely Urban, NOTA finds no takers
Buckingthe trend where NOTA polls significantly more votes in urban areas, the NOTAstory in Delhi presents a completely different picture. Despite being an urbanstate, NOTA hasn’t polled a significant share from 2013.
The2015 elections could be seen as a decisive vote in favour of AAP, after thehung assembly that the 2013 assembly elections threw up. The electorate couldhave been decisive in their voting in 2015 and this could have had an impact onthe NOTA vote.
Evenin 2020, the voting was largely bi-polar & decisive with the top twoparties/alliances polling close to 94% of the total vote. This could haveworked against NOTA.
The parity between General and Reserved seats in terms of NOTA votes, both in the 2015 & 2020 assembly elections is different from the trend observed in other parts of the country where NOTA polls significantly more in reserved constituencies. All in all, NOTA doesn’t seem to have many takers in Delhi.
Featured Image: Share of NOTA in Delhi Elections