About 0.47% of voters in Kerala seemed not happy with the candidates in the fray in the Assembly election as they pressed the ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) button in the electronic voting machine.
Of the 2,08,33,801 electors who voted, 97,695 chose the NOTA option, according to an assessment by election watchdogs the Association for Democratic Reforms and the Kerala Election Watch. In the 2016 election, the corresponding figure was about 0.5%.
Thalassery tops chart
The Thalassery Assembly constituency recorded the highest number of NOTA votes (2,313) this time. The percentage of voters who decided not to choose any of the candidates did not make an impact on the electoral outcome as the winner had crossed the final lap with a margin of 36,801 votes.
Kalamassery figured second on the list where nearly 0.97% of the 1,55,863 votes polled were in favour of NOTA.
The constituencies in which NOTA recorded above 1,000 votes included Chittur (1,285); Manjeri (1,202); Sulthan Bathery (1,160); Vallikunnu (1,150); Paravur (1,109); Thripunitura (1,099); and Alappuzha (1,089).
11 women
Among the 140 winners in the Kerala Assembly polls, 11 are women. All of them won with 40% and above of vote share in their constituencies. Former Health Minister K.K Shailaja of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who won from Mattannur, had recorded a vote share (61.97%). She had won with 51.66% representativeness and 39.3% margin of victory.
Of the 71 re-elected, 20 won with more than 50% of vote share. All 71 of the re-elected had a vote share above 30%. Thirty-three of them, however, had less than 10% of margin of victory.
77 ‘crorepati’ winners
Twenty-seven out of 77 ‘crorepati’ candidates had won against a ‘non-crorepati’ runner-up. Of these, three had won with more than a 20% margin of victory.
Thirty-four of the 99 winners with declared criminal cases had won against a runner-up with a clean background. Of these, two had won with more than 20% margin of victory.
