Decline in NOTA share continues in Jharkhand Assembly Elections of 2019
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
January 2, 2020
Since the introduction of NOTA on the EVM, there has been an increased interest in the evaluation of NOTA vote share. Similar to the nationwide trend, the NOTA vote share in 2019 Jharkhand Assembly elections was less than the 2014 assembly elections.
NOTAoption on the EVMs was introduced by Election Commission of India in October 2013, in accordance with the Supreme
Court Judgement on 27September 2013, in People’s Unionfor Civil Liberties Vs the Union of India case.
Atotal of 46 elections (44 Assembly and 2 Lok Sabha) were conducted since theinception of NOTA, with the Assembly elections in Jharkhand being the latestone. As observed in an earlier
story of Factly, the vote share of NOTA is on a continuousdecline since its introduction.
Anothergeneral trend is that NOTA polls a higher share of votes in the reserved seats i.e.SC & ST than in the general constituencies.
Jharkhandis one of the states which has a sizeable ST population. In this story, we lookat the NOTA related numbers in the recently concluded Jharkhand assemblyelections.
Share
of NOTA votes decreased in 2019 compared to 2014 Assembly elections
Boththe assembly elections in 2014 and 2019 for the state of Jharkhand were heldacross 81 constituencies.  Of these, 44constituencies are in the ‘General’ category, 9 are SC reserved seats and 28  are ST reserved seats.
Outof around 1.38 crore total votes polled in 2014 assembly elections, 2.35 lakhvotes were polled for NOTA i.e. 1.7% of the total. The total number of votespolled in 2019 assembly elections increased to 1.5 crores. However, the numberof votes for NOTA have reduced to 2.05 lakh votes with the NOTA vote sharingfalling to 1.36% of the total.
Votesfor NOTA were polled across all the 81 constituencies in both the 2014 and 2019assembly elections.
In2014, the highest share of NOTA was 4.3% in Jagannathpur. Out of the total1,13,318 votes polled in that constituency, NOTA polled 4,919 votes.
Thesame constituency polled the highest share for NOTA even in 2019. However, theshare reduced to 3.6% with 4,092 votes polled for NOTA out of the total 1,13,558votes.  In 2014, NOTA was at 5 position in this constituency while in 2019, NOTA was in the 8 position.Jagannathpur is a ST reserved seat.
Fall
in the share of NOTA votes in Reserved as well as General seats.
In2014 Jharkhand Assembly elections, around 81.94 lakh votes were polled in the44 General constituencies of which NOTA polled 97,965 votes i.e. 1.2%. Both thenumber of votes and the vote share for NOTA in general constituencies decreasedin 2019 assembly elections with 86,615 votes of NOTA i.e. a share of 0.98% outof the total 88.83 lakhs.
Inthe 28 ST reserved constituencies, 43.43 lakh votes were polled in 2019assembly elections as against 40.56 lakh votes in 2014. Of these the votes, theshare of votes for NOTA was 2.29% with 92,697 votes in 2014, while in 2019, theshare fell to 1.87 % with 81,345 votes.
Thehighest share of NOTA votes is in the SC reserved constituencies, although NOTAshare in these constituencies also fell in 2019 compared to 2014.  In the 9 SC reserved seats, 16.17 lakhs voteswere polled in 2014 which increased to 18.22 lakh votes in 2019. However, only37,090 votes were polled for NOTA in 2019 as against 44,377 votes in 2014.Although the share of 2.04% votes for NOTA in 2019 in the SC reserved seats ishigher compared to General and ST reserved seats, it is less than the NOTA voteshare in these constituencies in 2014 when it was 2.74%.
Not
a single Constituency in 2019 polled more than 4% NOTA
Inthe 2014 assembly elections, 3 constituencies had vote share of more than 4%for NOTA. Of these two were SC reserved seats and the other is a ST reservedseat. However, none of the constituencies polled more than 4% for NOTA in the 2019Assembly elections.
As mentioned earlier, the highest vote share for NOTA in 2019 is 3.6% in Jagannathpur constituency, which is a ST reserved seat. It has to be noted that this was also the seat with highest NOTA vote share of 4.3% in 2014.
Ofthe two other seats with more than 4% NOTA share in 2014, NOTA polled only 0.8%in 2019 in Simaria constituency which polled 4.1% in 2014.
Thenumber of constituencies with less that 1% vote share  for NOTA has increased in 2019 Assemblyelections compared to 2014. While there were 19 such constituencies in the 2014elections, the number has increased to 29 in 2019 with the major increase inGeneral seats. In 25 out of 44 General seats, NOTA polled less than 1% in 2019while it was 18 in previous assembly elections of 2014.
NOTA
was in the ‘Top 5’ in 31 constituencies in 2019 Assembly elections
Thebest position that NOTA secured in 2019 Assembly elections is third.  NOTA occupied 3 place in the three constituencies of – Gumla, Manika andSisai , with all the three of them being ST reserved seats. NOTA polled 3266,4980 and 5013 i.e. 2.32%, 3.32% and 3.09% respectively in these constituencies.In all these three constituencies the margin of victory of the winningcandidate is higher than the votes polled by NOTA.
NOTAvotes were in the 4 position in 11 constituencies of which 5 werein General category seats, 2 in SC reserved and 4 in ST reserved seats. In 17 otherconstituencies, NOTA stood at 5 position. Of these, 2 are Generalseats, 4 SC reserved seats and 11 ST reserved seats.
Overall
share of NOTA in 2019 Lok Sabha elections decreased compared to 2014
The share of NOTA votes in 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the 14 constituencies of Jharkhand was 1.5%, while it reduced to 1.26% in 2019 elections to Lok Sabha.
Ofthe 14 Lok Sabha seats in Jharkhand, 8 seats are General seats, 5 are STreserved and only one seat is SC reserved. NOTA polled the highest share inSinghbhum constituency in 2014 with 3.4% of the total vote. The NOTA share inthis constituency reduced to 2.7% in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, it isstill the constituency with highest share of NOTA votes of all the 14constituencies in Jharkhand. Singhbhum is a ST reserved constituency.
Whilethe NOTA vote share decreased in most of the constituencies in 2019 Lok Sabhaelections, the five constituencies of Chatra, Giridh, Godda , Hazaribagh andKodarma saw an increase in the NOTA share. Of these , Giridh and Kodarma have asignificant share of NOTA votes. Significantly all these 5 constituencies areGeneral seats.
4,879votes i.e. 0.5% was polled for NOTA in Giridh, which increased to 19708 votesfor NOTA in 2019 i.e. 1.78%.
Meanwhilein Kodarma, 31,164 votes were polled for NOTA in 2019 i.e. 2.57% , an increase from6,712 votes i.e. 0.7 % in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Declining
share of NOTA votes in Jharkhand similar to the trend across the nation
Asobserved in an earlier
story of Factly, the share of NOTA votes is on a declineover the years. In a similar trend, there has been a fall in the share of NOTAvotes in Jharkhand in both the Assembly elections as well as Lok Sabhaelections.
However, despite the fall in the overall share,SC & ST reserved seats still poll a higher share of NOTA votes compared tothat of General seats. The 2019 Jharkhand assembly elections were no exception.