The results of the parliamentary elections will be announced within a few hours. Against this backdrop, the Indore parliamentary seat has sparked a distinct debate, with the BJP's victory almost certain. However, there's ongoing speculation about the margin of victory. On Monday, the BJP stated that their win would be by a historic margin of over 10 lakh votes. On the other hand, the opposition Congress claimed that NOTA (None of the Above) will see a record number of votes. It's noteworthy that last election, the margin of victory was 5.47 lakh.
Indeed, the Congress candidate's withdrawal during Indore's parliamentary elections delivered a shock to the Congress on April 29th, when Akshay Kanti Bam rescinded his nomination, leading to the first time in Indore's 72-year political history where the oldest party had no role in the votes. Congress deemed this a "strangulation of democracy." Moreover, throughout its campaign in Indore, Congress had appealed to voters to "teach the BJP a lesson" by pressing the NOTA option on the EVM.
According to Election Commission of India's data, the voting in Indore took place on May 13th, with 61.75 percent of the total 25.27 lakh voters exercising their right. Observers noted that while there were 14 candidates in the fray, the main contest appeared to be between BJP's incumbent MP Shankar Lalwani and NOTA. Lalwani expressed confidence in the media, saying, "We believe that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we will register the biggest victory Indore has ever seen with a margin exceeding 10 lakh votes." In the 2019 elections, he had defeated Congress's Pankaj Sanghvi by 5.48 lakh votes.
In 2019, Indore saw a 69.31 percent voter turnout, with 5,045 voters choosing NOTA. On the eve of the vote count on Tuesday, senior Congress leader Shobha Ojha claimed, "This time NOTA will receive at least two lakh votes in Indore. This will be a historic national record and serve as a lesson to political parties like the BJP which strangle democracy." Notably, the NOTA option was introduced following a Supreme Court decision in September 2013. Coincidentally, in the 2019 legislative elections, Gopalganj in Bihar witnessed a record NOTA vote of 51,660 or about 5 percent of the votes cast.
When it comes to record victory margins, in the 2019 parliamentary elections, the Gujarat BJP chief CR Patil won the Navsari seat by a huge margin of 6.90 lakh votes. Moreover, in the Lok Sabha by-election in October 2014, BJP's Preetam Munde won with a staggering margin of 6.96 lakh votes from Maharashtra's Beed constituency. This by-election was necessitated due to the tragic demise of prominent BJP leader Gopinath Munde in a car accident.
