HYDERABAD: No one would know the value of 171 votes better than TRS candidate Kova Laxmi, losing to arch-rival from the Congress’ Athram Sakku in Asifabad Assembly constituency. But on the flip side, in the recently concluded elections, there are as many as 136 candidates who did not even cross a century-mark.
An analysis of all the constituencies by Express brought to light that most of such candidates are concentrated in the GHMC limits. Amberpet (13), Khairatabad (16), and Musheerabad (10) tops the list with more than ten such candidates not getting at least a hundred votes. Probably the most disappointing, Azizuddin Ahmed, an independent candidate from Khairatabad managed to get only 34 votes.
Another from Amberpet K Shyam, also an independent candidate got 43 votes. Interestingly, it may be mentioned that BJP bigwig G Kishan Reddy lost by a mere 1,016 votes. And, one of the reasons why he lost is that all independent candidates, who scored less than 100 votes, almost made up to margin by which he lost. Amberpet constituency saw as many as 13 candidates getting less than 100 votes.
“A lot of these independent candidates expect the major candidates to give money, in exchange for their withdrawal for the nomination,” M Padmanabhan Reddy, secretary for Forum for Good Governance. “When it doesn’t work out, they continue to contest as candidates and secure such low votes.” But it is not just money that excites the independent candidates, in most cases, as there are few who contest for fame. “If they make it big this time, the independent candidates will have greater say in their locality.
They would at least want to contest and win as a corporator in the municipality elections,” Padmanabhan added.
Surprisingly, even the major contestants sponsor the independent candidates to contest. One might think it is to split the vote share among the serious contestants. While that is the case, serious contestants also want more vehicles for campaigning. “There are only three vehicles allowed per candidate. Through the independent candidates that number of vehicles used is swelled. It’s also uncommonly used,” Padmanabhan observed.
Did you know?
In 1996, when 480 candidates contested from Nalgonda parliamentary constituency, to protest on the state apathy on flouride issue, 88 of those candidates didn’t vote for themselves. 158 candidates got one vote each
NOTA gains popularity
If NOTA were a party, they would be happy with their increasing vote share in this year’s elections. This after the option saw over 65,000 more votes polled in it’s favour that 2014. In 2014, 119 constituencies falling in TS lodged 1.50 lakh votes for NOTA on the EVMs across TS. However this number in 2018 rose sharply to 2,24,709 votes making about 1.1% of the entire vote share. The sharp rise was especially seen in the rural areas as against urban areas, with some areas like Wardhannapet lodged over 5,864 votes for NOTA. Husnabad followed closely with 3,513 votes. NOTA this year had lowest vote share in Nampally with 793 votes.