Crosses majority mark to win Prez poll; Sinha congratulates her
STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: The NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu on Thursday emerged victorious in the presidential election by bagging a total of 6,76,803 votes over her rival Yashwant Sinha who polled 3,80,177 votes.
Making an official announcement after the fourth round of counting, Returning Officer P C Mody declared Murmu as the winner with 64.03 per cent votes. Sinha got 36 per cent of the valid votes polled.
Murmu bagged votes from a total of 2824 electors, including 540 MPs, while her rival Sinha got votes of 1,877 electors including 208 MPs in the election.
There were a total of 4809 electors, including 776 MP with total vote value of 10,72,377, but votes of 53 electors including the maximum of 15 MPs were declared invalid in the election held on July 18.
“In my capacity as Returning Officer, I declare Droupadi Murmu as President of India,” said Mody while declaring the final result of counting.
Among states Murmu got the maximum votes from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh while Sinha’s tally was highest in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Tally boosted by cross-voting from Opposition members
New Delhi: A sizeable number of MLAs from across state assemblies cross-voted in support of President-elect Droupadi Murmu, defying their parties’ stated support to Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, sources said on Thursday.
BJP sources said around 125 MLAs from different assemblies cross-voted in her support. Counting of votes also suggests that Murmu was the beneficiary of cross-voting from 17 MPs.
Assam, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh assemblies witnessed a significant number of Opposition MLAs voting for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s candidate.
Around 22 MLAs in Assam and 20 in Madhya Pradesh assemblies are likely to have cross-voted. Six opposition MLAs each from Bihar and Chhattisgarh, four from Goa and 10 from Gujarat may also have voted for Murmu.
Murmu’s tribal background appeared to have drawn support from Opposition MLAs from Jharkhand too, where the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha had already announced support to her.
Set to be India’s first tribal and also the youngest president, Murmu received maximum votes from Uttar Pradesh and Maharastra assemblies while Sinha got his largest share of support from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
All MLAs from Andhra Pradesh, where the ruling YSR Congress as well the pposition TDP had pledged support to Murmu, voted for her. On the other hand, Sinha swept all votes from Kerala MLAs as the ruling Left and the opposition Congress had both supported him.
Murmu also received all the votes from Sikkim and Nagaland assemblies.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma indicated about the cross-voting from opposition MLAs with his tweet, “Droupadi Murmu polled 104 votes compared to NDA’s original strength of 79 in the 126 member Assam Assembly. 2 absent. My heartfelt gratitude to the people of Assam for reposing their faith in the NDA’s Presidential candidate & wholeheartedly joining this historic moment.”
After the end of the counting process that continued for more than 10 hours, Returning Officer P C Mody declared Murmu as the winner and said the value of votes she got was 6,76,803 against Sinha’s 3,80,177.
Sources said 17 MPs from opposition parties have cross-voted in her support.
All MLAs from Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim voted in Murmu’s favour, while in Arunachal Pradesh she got votes of all legislators except for four and all of all MLA except one in Nagaland. Sinha did not get a single vote from assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim.
Murmu got maximum votes of Parliamentarians and least in Kerala where she got only one vote.
Officials said the NDA candidate received two-thirds of the votes in all the earlier three rounds of counting.
Conceding defeat, Opposition candidate Sinha congratulated Murmu and said that every Indian hopes that as the 15th President she functions as the “custodian of the Constitution” without fear or favour.
In a statement, Sinha thanked the leaders of the Opposition parties for choosing him as their consensus candidate in this election.
“I also thank all members of the Electoral College who voted for me. I accepted the offer of Opposition parties solely guided by the philosophy of Karma Yoga preached by Lord Krishna in the Bhagvad Gita – ‘Do your duty without expectation of the fruits thereof’,” Sinha said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president J P Nadda visited Murmu’s residence here to congratulate her.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also congratulated Murmu on her “impressive” win and asserted that her victory is proof of India democracy’s strength.
The Election Commission is likely to issue ‘certificate of election’ to the winning candidate on Friday.
With each MP having a vote value of 700 in this presidential election, Murmu had a total vote value of 5,23,600 which is 72.19 per cent of the total valid vote count of MPs polled.
