When NOTA scored more than BJP in RK Nagar by-polls

Chennai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) high command is not going to be too happy about this. In the contest between the None Of The Above (NOTA) and BJP during the RK Nagar by-polls results, NOTA managed to pull in more votes than the saffron party candidate Karu Nagarajan.

NOTA emerged at the fifth position with 2,373 votes while Nagarjuna secured a distant sixth place with just 1,417 votes. 

On Sunday, the RK by-polls were swept by Independent candidate TTV Dhinakaran who got a massive 89,000 votes, defeating his nearest rival AIADMK candidate E Madhusudhanan who got 48,306 votes.

The third highest votes – 24,681 – went to DMK candidate N Marudhu Ganesh, followed Naam Tamizhar party who got 3,860 votes.

In Tamil Nadu politics, AIADMK and DMK have been the traditional heavyweight players. Following Jayalalithaa's death, TTV Dhinakaran – the expelled AIADMK leader – emerged as the third giant and contested the polls as an independent candidate.

At present, a BJP government (solo or in alliance) is in power in 19 states. 

Nagarajan, the BJP face on Tamil channels, had previously unsuccessfully contested the 2016 Assembly polls from Mylapore constituency in this city. AIADMK had then won the seat.