Left polled fewer votes than NOTA in Punjab election

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, March 13

Several parties could not even match the number of NOTA votes polled in the recent Punjab Assembly elections.

As per the results declared on Thursday, of the 1.54 crore votes polled in the state, 1.10 lakh went to the None of the Above (NOTA) option, making up for 0.71 per cent of the total votes.

Among the political parties that polled fewer votes than NOTA was the CPI (ML-Liberation), which had fielded 11 candidates but got just 4,640 votes. Another Left party, the CPI, had fielded seven candidates and got 7,734 votes, while CPM’s 11 candidates polled 9,281 votes. Besides, the JD-U and RSP polled fewer votes than NOTA.

The Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, which had fielded 108 candidates got 1,85,523 votes, with a vote share of 1.2%, while BSP’s 23 candidates, contesting in alliance with the SAD, polled 1.77% votes.

In the last Assembly elections, 1.08 lakh voters had opted for NOTA, making up for 0.7% of the total polled votes. In fact, the vote share of NOTA was then higher than that of five political parties — CPM, CPI, SAD (A), Revolutionary Marxist Party of India and Apna Punjab Party — put together.

Vote share of SAD(A) surges

Simranjit Singh Mann’s SAD (Amritsar) has significantly increased its vote share as compared to the last polls. The party, which had fielded 91 candidates, polled 4.31 lakh votes this time. In 2017, the party had fielded 54 candidates, but none, including Mann, could save their security deposit. They had together polled 49,000 votes.