Nitish and Modi act as non-playing captain and deputy in Prez poll

Patna, July 19 (UNI) As the polling process to elect the 13th President of India began here this morning, it was ironical that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi would not be able to cast their votes for not being members of the state legislative assembly.

However, both Mr Kumar and Mr Modi are seemed to be acting as non-playing captain and vice-captain of their respective of MLAs' team as they engaged themselves in hectic parleys during the past few days to ensure there is no cross voting and the NDA legislators would cast their votes in favour of independent candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

This morning too, both the leaders reached their assembly chambers much before the polling began at 1000 hours and started monitoring the voting trend from the very beginning.

Though no political party can issue whip to their MPs and MLAs to cast votes in favour of its official candidate, top leaders of all NDA constituents had left no stone unturned to persuade the MLAs to exercise their franchise in favour of the officially preferred candidate.

Incidentally, Mr Kumar and Mr Modi had resigned from Nalanda and Bhagalpur Lok Sabha seats respectively after they became the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister. Later both the leaders became the members of the state legislative council.

State Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh and Water Resources Minister Ramashrya Prasad Singh are the two other ministers in Nitish Kumar cabinet who are also the members of the upper house of the state legislature and would not be able to cast their votes.

UNI