NOTA: Not a first choice, but more picked it in 2018

Hyderabad: None Of The Above (NOTA).

It’s possibly not an easy choice to cast a ballot for NOTA where voters reject all candidates in the fray but it is now up to the voters in Telangana if they will follow the tradition of history, or go against it when exercising this choice in the coming November 30 elections for the state Legislative Assembly.

The NOTA votes that stood at 1.52 lakh in the 2014 elections for the 119 constituencies rose to 2,24,709 in 2018. Right now it is anybody’s guess if voters find the candidates in the fray to their liking, or if more voters will go forward and reject everyone contesting in their constituencies.

While almost all constituencies had some NOTA votes, it was only Siricilla that had none. The top ten constituencies with the highest NOTA option chosen between them had 36,901 NOTA votes.

Interestingly, from these, it is only Kadiam Srihari, contesting from Station Ghanpur on a BRS ticket this time. who did not have to contend with the NOTA issue as he did not contest in the 2018 elections

Every other candidate from these 10 constituencies – be it the winner, or the runner-up – had experienced the NOTA phenomenon in the last elections as they gear up to face the next round on November 30.

Thanks to NOTA, 10 politicians who won in 2018 from top 10 NOTA constituencies in the fray again.

Constituency          NOTA             Winner                                Runner-up

Wardhannapet       5,864       A. Ramesh (BRS)       Pagidipati Devaiah (TJS)

Serilingampally      3,637     Arekapudi Gandhi (BRS)   V. Ananda Prasad (TD)

Husnabad            3,534      V. Sateesh Kumar (BRS)   Chada Venkat Reddy (CPI)

Khammam         3,513      P. Ajay Kumar (BRS)         Nama Nageswara Rao (TD)

Alampur           3,492      V.M. Abraham (BRS)           S.A. Sampath Kumar (INC)

Medchal           3,402     Ch Malla Reddy (BRS)          K. Laxma Reddy (INC)

Malkajgiri   3,391  Mynampally Hanumanth Rao (BRS)  N. Ramchander Rao (BJP)

Mahbubabad  3,279   B. Shankar Nayak (BRS)         P. Balram Naik (INC)

Mulug          3,249     Dansari Anasuya (INC)            Azmeera Chandulal (BRS)

In Station Ghanpur, the number of NOTA votes were 3,540 in T. Rajaiah’s (BRS) victory over Indira Singapuram (INC). He has been replaced by Kadiam Srihari (BRS).