Madhya Pradesh’s largest Lok Sabha constituency Indore on Tuesday, 4 June registered a staggering 2.18 lakh votes for NOTA (None of the Above), making it the runner-up in the elections after the Bharatiya Janta Party’s (BJP's) Shankar Lalwani. Lalwani won the seat with 12.26 lakh votes.
The Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP's) Sanjay Solanki stood third with 51,659 votes.
Indore’s NOTA votes are the highest-ever since the option was introduced in the 2014 general elections.
This is an indirect win for the Congress who could not contest on the said seat after their candidate Akshay Kanti Bam withdrew his nomination on 29 April, and subsequently joined the BJP. The Congress supporters had campaigned for NOTA during the election.
In the absence of a candidate from Congress, it was a walk-over for Lalwani and the BJP in Indore.
After Bam’s withdrawal, Madhya Pradesh Cabinet Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya had posted on X (formerly Twitter), “We welcome Akshay Kanti Bam Ji Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Indore into the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, national BJP president JP Nadda and state president VD Sharma.”
After Bam’s withdrawal, Lalwani ran practically uncontested.
In 2019, the BJP won with 10.6 lakh votes, maintaining their winning streak in Indore. Since 1989, BJP has held the constituency – the BJP’s Sumitra Mahajan held the seat for eight consecutive terms.
The BJP has been retaining the Indore seat since 1989. Before Lalwani, BJP member Sumitra Mahajan, who also served as Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2014 to 2019, held the position for an exceptional eight consecutive terms.
Counting is still underway in at least 16 Lok Sabha seats of Madhya Pradesh where the BJP is leading with a margin of over 50,000 to 1.50 lakh votes. Apart from Indore, the BJP has won the 12 seats on which counting is complete.
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