There was 99% turnout on Monday to elect India’s 15th President as NDA’s Droupadi Murmu is pitted against Opposition’s Yashwant Sinha.
Crossvoting in favour of the NDA nominee in several states and absenteeism by MLAs in some others created a show of dissidence in the opposition ranks. There were reports of cross-voting in UP, Gujarat and Odisha. In Bengal, BJP declared its MLA count as 70 instead of 75, anticipating cross-voting by those who had unofficially defected. A Congress MLA in Telangana said he had ‘mistakenly’ voted for Murmu.
Across the country, several MLAs abstained, including at least eight from the northeast and a Shiromani Akali Dal member in Punjab who said he was boycotting the polls in protest. Voting for the presidential election also marked the start of Parliament's monsoon session, with PM Modi saying this was a particularly important period.
The Election Commission said while two MLAs – Anant Kumar Singh and Mahendra Hari Dalvi – were not eligible to vote in view of their disqualification,there are five vacancies in Rajya Sabha and six in the state assemblies. Polling began in the Parliament House with PM Narendra Modi casting the first vote. Former PM Manmohan Singh (89), who arrived in a wheelchair, was also among the first few to vote. Besides Singh, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was also ferried up to the ballot box on a wheel chair, while Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and RK Singh came in PPE suits.
Of the total 4,796 MPs and MLAs that form the electoral college for choosing the next President of India, 4,754 cast their ballot (overall 99.12% turnout) at Parliament House and 30 at other poll locations across the state/UT legislative assemblies. Of a total 771 MPs, 763 voted (98.96% turnout); while of the total 4,025 MLAs, 3991 exercised their franchise (99.15% turnout). Sources said 8 MPs and 34 MLAs did not vote.
MPs who did not cast their vote included BJP’s Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre, both of whom were absent due to health issues, AIMIM’s Imtiyaz Jaleel, Shiv Sena’s Gajanan Kirtikar, Congress’ Mohammed Sadiq, DMK’s T R Paarivendhar and Bahujan Samaj Party MPs Atul Singh and Haji Fazlur Rehman.
There was 100% turnout in 11 states -Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu – and the Union Territory of Puducherry.
In all, 44 MPs were permitted to vote at state headquarters, 9 MLAs at Parliament House and 2 MLAs in other state headquarters. The EC also allowed electors who are Covid-19 positive to vote in the last hour of polling or after all the non-Covid electors had cast their vote. Two Covid positive electors cast their vote at Tamil Nadu assembly and one in Thiruvananthapuram.
Counting of all votes will be taken up at Parliament House on July 21 at 11am.
EC had, to ensure that no other instrument is used by the voter for marking the preference of vote, centrally supplied unique, serial numbered pens with violet ink for the purpose. Special posters on the use of special pens and ‘do’s and don’ts’ for electors for casting their vote were displayed at prominent places outside the polling stations.
All Gujarat MLAs vote
All the eligible 178 MLAs of the Gujarat assembly cast their votes along with one member of Parliament in the election on Monday. The lone NCP MLA in the house, Kandhal Jadeja, claimed he voted for NDA nominee despite his party supporting the opposition candidate. Meanwhile, Parimal Nathwani, Rajya Sabha MP from Andhra Pradesh, also voted at the Gujarat assembly after seeking prior permission of the Parliament secretariat.
