The Nota (none of the above) option made its presence felt quite significantly, exceeding the margin of victory or defeat in 29 constituencies, which is about one out of six.Probably the most high-profile seat in which Nota exceeded the victory margin was Porbandar, where Congress ’s Arjunbhai Modhwadia lost by 1,855 votes to BJP ’s Babubhai Bokhiriya , his longstanding rival. Nota picked up 3,433 votes in this seat.A total of 5.5 lakh voters across the state picked the Nota option, which meant it had a 1.8% voteshare, making it the third largest ‘party’ in these polls.In the context of these assembly polls, where one section of voters was widely perceived as being angry with BJP, it is possible that a high Nota count could reflect those too angry to vote for the saffron party but unwilling to vote for Congress.However, it would be misleading to look at the number 29 and conclude that if there had been fewer Nota votes in the closely fought seats, Congress may have actually won the elections. The fact is that Nota being higher than the victory margin cuts both ways. Of the 29 seats where this was the case, BJP won 15, but Congress won 13 too, and an Independent one seat.Since its introduction to India’s electoral scene in 2013, Nota has exceeded 1.8% of votes in only four previous elections — touching 3.5% in Bihar in 2015, only a slightly lower 3.1% in Chhattisgarh in 2013, and 1.9% each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan the same year. However, none of these was a close election like the current Gujarat polls, which makes it a more significant factor here.Interestingly, even in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, 1.8% of Gujarat’s voters had exercised their newfound right to reject all the political parties. This was despite the fact that the state was in the grips of a Modi wave at the time.In these assembly elections, while Nota made its impact felt across the state, it was most pronounced in central Gujarat, making up 2% of the votes, and least so in the south, where it accounted for 1.6%.