The gas victims’ organisations campaign in favour of None of the Above (NOTA) in the State Assembly elections, failed to attract the voters. This was evident with the results of the elecitons declared on Sunday.
The organisations had campaigned in favour of NOTA asking the gas victims to press the NOTA button on the EVMs in the two Assembly constituencies where most affected reside.
The number of voters opted to go with the newly introduced NOTA option was 2337 in Bhopal Uttar assembly constituency and 2013 in Bhopal Madhya assembly constituency. These are the two constituencies in which over 95 per cent of the gas victims reside. The number of NOTA voters in these constituencies is in tandem with other constituencies of the state in fact the number of voters in some other constituencies is much more than these constituencies.
Notably, unhappy by near total neglect the leaders of the five NGOs (non-government organisations) working for the welfare of survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the world's worst industrial disaster in December 1984, launched campaign to educate the gas-affected voters in these constituencies about the NOTA, option of rejecting all candidates polling for that was held on November 25.
Meanwhile, it may be recalled here that on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984 Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing factory had spewed poisonous Methyl Iso-cyanate gas whereby 3000 people had perished virtually instantly and over the years more than 25000 have kissed death and the sad saga is still continuing uninterruptedly. About half a million are suffering from the side effects of the poisonous gas and several thousand people have been maimed for life.