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The Congress was two short of a simple majority to form the government in Madhya Pradesh and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell short of seven seats. Indications are that Congress may form the government in the State.
The results may have turned out a little different, had the NOTA (none of the above) votes not played spoilsport in 10 constituencies where the margin of victory was below 1,000 votes. The Congress bagged seven such constituencies and the BJP, three.
For instance, the margin of loss was below 932 votes for the BJP in these seven constituencies, while NOTA figures were higher, ranging from 1,200-3,358 votes. Likewise, for the Congress, the margin of loss was below 720 votes in three constituencies, but NOTA polled between 1,510 and 1,674 votes. (See table).
Consider the results in Gwalior South. Praveen Pathak of the Congress defeated Narayan Singh Kushwah of BJP by 121 votes. This is the lowest victory margin in Madhya Pradesh. The number of NOTA votes in this constituency was 1,550. The results would be particularly disappointing for Kushwah, as he had won this seat with a margin of 16,267 votes in 2013.
In Rajpur (ST) constituency, while Bala Bachhan of Congress retained the seat, his margin of victory plunged to 932 votes from 11,196 votes in 2013. As many as 3,358 voters in the constituency chose NOTA.
Of the seven constituencies won by Congress in a narrow margin battle, it wrested four from the BJP and retained three seats. Comparatively, the BJP could wrest only one constituency from Congress while retaining two.
Notwithstanding NOTA’s role in these 10 constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, it may be noted that the total votes that went to NOTA had declined to 5,42,295 (1.4 per cent of all votes polled) in the recent elections from 6,43,171 (1.9 per cent) votes in 2013. NOTA votes played less of a spoilsport in the last Assembly elections in the 10 constituencies that were analysed.
The NOTA votes were between 1,620 and 3,221 in these 10 constituencies, while the margin of victory was in the range of 3,000-33,000 votes.
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