With the conclusion of the General Lok Sabha election in India there comes out of the box results which were not predicted by the exit polls. With the conclusion of the elections Election commission of India came forward and gave the important and very factual numbers. It says that India has made a world record with total of 642 million voters who voted in these elections.

This number i.e. 642 million is a record in itself as it is:

• 1.5 times greater than the total voters of the G7 countries.
• 2.5 times greater than the voters of the all 27 countries of the European Union.

It is the largest festival of the democracy and democracy provides option to individuals to elect their representative and get better governance. So in this festival of democracy everyone has their right to vote and choice to elect.

• There comes an important conclusion from the results of the general lok Sabha elections that there is no single party which gets complete majority and due to this ,collision government is about to form.

During this time we have witnessed a record break of NOTA (None of the above). In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore constituency NOTA is the runner up with more than 200000 votes in favour of NOTA.

Why does this happened?

The congress candidate Mr. Akshya kanti Bam withdrew his candidature and joined BJP and date for filling the nomination for the new candidate had already gone, so with no choice congress in its campaign asked the voters to vote for NOTA.

From where does NOTA Came?

In September 2013 Supreme Court directed Election commission of India to introduce option of NOTA for the voters in order to protect the secrecy of the voters’ choice.

• In 2004 the People’s union for Civil liberties (PUCL) had approached the apex court seeking directions to ECI for measures to protect the “right to secrecy” of the voters to exercise their franchise.
• In this case Supreme Court held that whether a voter decides to vote or decides not to vote, in both the cases secrecy has to be maintained, as with the introduction of the EVMs the court noted that everyone present in the polling booth would know if a voter had decided not to vote.
• In these elections NOTA secured 202212 votes in Indore constituency, next only to BJP’s candidate Shankar Lalwani who secured 1160627 votes and won with the record margin of 10.09 lakh votes.

But one thing must be noted that is NOTA stood 2nd or runner up in Indore constituency.

What if NOTA gets highest number of votes?

• At present there is no legal consequence of this, which means the 2nd most successful candidate wins the election.
• Currently the apex court is considering the petition for the elections to be considered “null and void” if NOTA receives highest number of votes in any constituency.
• Previously in 2019 election, Gopalganj lok Sabha seat in Bihar, it recorded maximum number of NOTA i.e. 51660 which is about 5% of the total votes polled in the constituency.
• In 2014 lok Sabha polls Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu recorded 46559 votes for the NOTA.
• Finally we can say that from the results it is clear that no single party gets the complete majority so there is a chance of making a coalition government, as at present NDA (National Democratic Alliance) got the numbers, so President of India will invite largest Bloc to form the government.