Thane: A notable section of the higher middle class voters from new Thane area comprising of Ghodbunder and neighboring areas that voted for 2017 elections last week showed a thumbs down to the choice of candidates fielded by major parties. TMC statistics revealed the voters pressed the NOTA button around 81,888 times. This is around 2.82% of the total 28.96lakh votes cast by the around 7.24 lakh voters here considering that each voter voted four times in the new panel system.As high as 23,163 votes or roughly 3.19% of the total 7.24 lakh votes cast by the 1.81 lakh voters were for the NOTA button who seemed to have rejected the choice of netas contesting the polls Interestingly, the highest number of NOTA vote option of 1,847 was recorded from panel 7(B), which is Vartak Nagar panel where Kalpana Harishchandra Patil, wife of former Shiv Sena mayor HS Patil was contesting.In comparison, old Thane that had the highest voter turnout saw just 3.15% or 41,123 of 13.05 lakh votes opting for the NOTA button. The stretch comprising of areas like Saket-Rabodi-Vrindavan, Kisan Nagar-Padwal Nagar and Bhaskar Colony-Ghantali-Vishnu Nagar-Masunda also saw majority opting for NOTA. The highest count of NOTA votes of 1,371 in this stretch was seen in panel 22A comprising of Central Jail-Mahagiri-Kharkar Ali that had some little known names from major parties including Shiv Sena, BJP and Congress contesting. While a majority of voters from Kalwa, Mumbra and Diva stretches seemed to be satisfied with the choice of candidates fielded by the parties as a mere 2.02% of the total votes polled here were for NOTA option.The highest count of NOTA votes of 1,368 NOTA votes in this stretch was seen in panel 9A comprising of Parsik Nagar-Sanghvi Hills-Kharegaon area that had Shiv Sena's Ganesh kamble in the fray. The panels of Vikrant Chavan, Najib Mula, Hanumant Jagdale and Sudhakar Chavan, all prime accused in builder Suraj Parmar suicide case also saw notable use of the NOTA button. The option was also exercised in the slum pockets of Wagle Estate, Indira nagar, etc.A recent report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms and Maharashtra Election Watch, a voluntary group, revealed 16% out of a of 659 candidates running for the civic polls had a criminal background. Interestingly, a meagre 16% of 131 newly elected representatives have cleared their SSC while another 36% have not even reached class X.

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