Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha elections 2024: Over 1.4 lakh NOTA votes in Indore. Will Congress' prediction be true?

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Madhya Pradesh Lok Sabha elections 2024: Early trends of the Lok Sabha poll votes in Indore in Madhya Pradesh showed that NOTA (None of the Above) has bagged over 1.4 lakh votes till noon on Tuesday.According to the Election Commission of India's (ECI) data, as many as1,44,842 NOTA votes were casted till 12 noon on Tuesday.NOTA allows the voters to officially register a “vote of rejection" for all candidates contesting in an election. It was introduced in September 2013 following a Supreme Court decision.While 14 candidates were in the fray in Indore, the main battle is between BJP's sitting MP Shankar Lalwani and NOTA, PTI reported citing observers.Voting in Indore took place on May 13, with 61.75 per cent of the 25.27 lakh electors exercising their franchise.Congress, which was pushed out of fray from Madhya Pradesh's Indore Lok Sabha seat after its candidate withdrew, claimed on Monday that NOTA would bag two lakh votes.On April 29, Congress faced a significant blow when its candidate, Akshay Kanti Bam, withdrew his nomination.

This was the first time in Indore's 72-year electoral history that the Congress had no representation in the polls.The Congress had termed it the "strangling of democracy" and had been appealing to voters since then to press the None of The Above option on the EVM to "teach the Bharatiya Janata Party" a lesson."This time NOTA will get at least two lakh votes in Indore. This national record will go down in history.

It will be a lesson for political parties like BJP which strangle democracy," a senior Congress leader Shobha Oza had said.BJP's sitting MP Shankar Lalwani has bagged 8,02,755 votes, according to ECI data. With this, Lalwani is in lead with 6,57,913 votes.