Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru/Udupi

Mangaluru/Udupi, Jun 5: In the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi-Chikkamagaluru constituencies, apart from the BJP and Congress, the third highest number of votes went to NOTA, which received exactly 23,576 votes.

In the Beltangady constituency, NOTA received the highest number of votes, totaling 7,691. The distribution of NOTA votes in other constituencies is as follows: Moodbidri - 2,166, Mangaluru North - 2,019, Mangaluru South - 1,551, Mangaluru - 892, Bantwal - 2,353, Puttur - 2,302, and Sullia - 4,541. Additionally, 61 NOTA votes were cast via postal voting. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, NOTA received 7,109 votes, and in the 2019 election, it received 7,380 votes.

The campaign committee for Soujanya, a student from Ujire who was murdered, alleged that both the BJP and Congress parties failed to address the case and did not work to provide justice to the family. The committee appealed to the public to vote for NOTA, launching a large-scale campaign on social media. Committee leaders held public meetings in the Beltangady-Sullia taluk, urging people to vote for NOTA. As a result, the number of NOTA votes increased significantly this time.

Although the higher number of NOTA votes did not affect the election outcomes, it serves as a wake-up call for political parties in the coming days.

In the Udupi-Chikkamagaluru constituency, 7,510 NOTA votes were cast in the 2019 election, while 11,269 were cast this time. The Karkala and Udupi assembly constituencies saw a significant increase in NOTA votes. The distribution of NOTA votes in Kundapur was 1,578, Udupi 1,778, Kaup 1,523, Karkala 2,780, Sringeri 943, Mudigere 1,135, Chikkamagaluru 814, and Tarikere 684. Prior to the election, several organizations conducted a campaign encouraging voters to choose NOTA.