In the 2020 Bihar elections, NOTA usage dropped to 1.7% but still outpolled several parties. In many seats, NOTA votes exceeded the victory margin.

Bihar:  The ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option has sabotaged dozens of hotly contested seats and continues to outperform the great majority of political parties in Bihar’s Assembly elections, despite a fall in its vote percentage.
The Results of NOTA in the Bihar Elections

NOTA received 706,252 votes, or 1.7% of the total vote, in the 2020 Bihar Assembly elections. Even though this was less than the 2.4% (947,276 votes) it garnered in the 2015 elections, it was still a powerful force.

NOTA outperformed more than 96% of the competing political parties in both elections. Just eight of the 211 parties in 2020 received more votes than NOTA. Comparably, just six of the 156 parties were able to increase their vote totals in 2015.

Intriguingly, a number of parties that were able to get seats and join the cabinet, including Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM (1.3%), Mukesh Sahni’s VIP (1.5%), and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM (0.9%), yet received a lower total vote share than NOTA in 2020.

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The Effect of ‘Spoiler’

Constituencies with close margins of victory are where NOTA’s influence is most noticeable.

About 30 seats in the 2020 election had a winner whose margin of victory was smaller than the number of votes cast for NOTA.
This figure was 21 seats in 2015.

In 2020, NOTA received two to three times as many votes as the opposition, which had a significant impact on the outcome of hotly contested seats like Hilsa, Bakhri, and Ramgarh, where the victory margin was frequently less than 2,000.

NOTA: What Is It?

The Election Commission implemented the NOTA (‘None of the Above’) option on voting machines in response to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling. If a voter feels that none of the candidates in their constituency are suitable, they can legally reject them all. Voters were initially given the choice during the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections.