A Little But Growing Awareness About 49O
1,473 voters in Madhya Pradesh reject all candidates Sat, 25 Apr 2009
Bhopal, April 25 (IANS) A total of 1,473 voters in Madhya Pradesh trooped out of polling centres Thursday without voting because they did not find a suitable candidate to support, an official said Saturday.
The voters came to the polling booths, got their names registered and then left without voting for anyone in the Lok Sabha elections.
According to the State Election Commission, this was done under Section 49(0) of the Conduct of Election Rules.
The section allows a person to register his/her presence at the polling centre and then not vote for any candidate.
Such votes are recorded by the presiding officer and considered rejection of all candidates.
The highest number of such ‘votes’ were cast in the Khajuraho Lok Sabha constituency (712), which incidentally also recorded the lowest voting at 43.21 percent.
This was followed by 418 in Bhopal constituency, 189 in Chhindwara, 41 in Betul, 31 in Satna, 20 in Balaghat, 17 in Rewa, 15 in Vidisha, 14 in Shahdol, seven each in Jabalpur and Hoshangabad, four in Mandla and two in Sidhi.
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-NKJ
