Nepanagar assembly constituency in Burhanpur district recorded 75.86% voting till 6 pm. Except a few minor incidents, voting remained peaceful. At Chunna Bhatta area, voters boycotted voting in spite of administration’s effort to convince them into joining the poll. Six candidates, including BJP’s Sumitra Kasdekar and Congress’s Ramkishan Patel, are in the fray.

Bypoll at Nepanagar was held after the then Congress MLA Kasdekar joined BJP in March this year. Meanwhile, the administration and police department expressed gratitude to voters for supporting them amid the pandemic. With good voting percentage, both parties are anticipating victory in Nepanagar, but political pundits kept their fingers crossed claiming that high voting percentage favours the ruling party, but None of the Above (NOTA) could play an important role this time as well. Congress raised “Gaddar” (traitor) issue in its election campaign and high voting percentage could tilt in anyone’s favour.

In 2018, Nepanagar was among one of 22 assembly constituencies where a number of votes pulled into NOTA was more than the winning margin. Here NOTA got 2551 votes, while the victory margin was just half of that (precisely 1264). Now both parties are waiting for November 10.

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