New Delhi, Jun 5 (PTI) Of the 45,554 'None of the Above' (NOTA) votes cast in the seven city seats in the Lok Sabha elections, the North-West Delhi constituency recorded the highest number of such votes at 8,984, the Election Commission data shows.

In the constituency, BJP's Yogender Chandoliya won by a margin of 2,90,849 votes against Congress' Udit Raj.

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This election, however, saw a negligible dip in the total number of NOTA votes to 45,554 from 45,629 in 2019.

The lowest count of NOTA votes were cast in the New Delhi constituency where BJP's Bansuri Swaraj was pitted against AAP's Somnath Bharti. A total of 4,813 voters in the constituency opted for this option.

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The NOTA option gives voters the choice to reject all candidates in the fray. It was incorporated into the electronic voting machine (EVM) in September 2013 following a Supreme Court verdict.

In the Chandni Chowk constituency, where BJP's Praveen Khandelwal won with a lead of 89,325 votes, 5,563 electors opted for NOTA.

In North-East Delhi where two Purvanchali faces -- BJP's Manoj Tiwari and Congress' Kanhaiya Kumar -- were in a direct fight, 5,873 voters selected NOTA.

The figure was almost close in East Delhi constituency where 5,394 voters opted for the NOTA option while 5,961 voters did the same in South Delhi constituency.

The second highest NOTA votes were cast in West Delhi constituency with 8,699 votes where AAP's Mahabal Mishra was contesting BJP's Kamaljeet Sehrawat.

Former chief election commissioner O P Rawat had recently described NOTA as having a "symbolic" impact and said if it gets more than 50 per cent votes in a seat, only then making it legally effective on poll results could be considered.

Rawat had told PTI that if 99 out of 100 votes go in favour of the NOTA option and someone gets one vote, even then the candidate will emerge victorious.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)