With the None of the Above (NOTA) option in EVMs gaining popularity with every election and more and more voters opting for it, it seems that people are slowly losing faith in the system. Compared to 65,735 voters in the city choosing NOTA in the 2014 assembly elections, the number has shot to 1,41,984 this year. Similarly, 7,01,564 voters across the state opted for NOTA this time compared to 4,60,741 in the last election.

While Latur assembly recorded the highest number of NOTA votes (27,287), which is 13.85 per cent of the total, in Ulhasnagar the BJP candidate received 43,577 votes whereas 4,978 NOTA votes were recorded. According to the trend, voters of those constituencies chose NOTA where there weren't strong opponents. This time 1.4 per cent of the total number of voters (5,30 crore) chose NOTA as compared to 2014's 0.9 per cent.