How cross voting by 116 legislators helped President-elect Ram Nath Kovind

In Maharashtra Kovind was expected to get 195 votes, but ended up with 208.

There were over a 100 legislators who cross voted in favour of Ram Nath Kovind who won the Presidential elections on Thursday. The states that reported cross voting were Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Kovind finally secured 2.930 votes as against the 1,844 secured by Meira Kumar. The overall vote value for Kovind was 661 more than the assured vote value of 701,382. Meira Kumar's total vote value stood at 367,314.

Post polling Kovind's campaign manager Bhupendra Yadav said that there were 116 people who had not openly pledged their support for Kovind, but voted for him.

The total combined value of votes in the presidential election is 1098,903 - 549,408 for 543 Lok Sabha and 233 Rajya Sabha parliamentarians, and 549,495 for 4,120 legislators in state assemblies.

Chinks in Gujarat:

In Gujarat there were at least 11 MLAs of the Congress who voted in favour of Kovind. This clearly indicates that all is not well in the opposition thanks to the rebellion by senior leader Shankarsinh Vagela.

This could have a bearing on the Rajya Sabha elections to the three seats from Gujarat. It would be important for the Congress to keep its flock together as it expects to win at least one of these seats.

Spokesperson for the Congress Randeep Singh Surjewala said that they would look into the matter.

In Uttar Pradesh Meira Kumar polled 65 votes. She had expected to get 74 votes from the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal and the Samajwadi Party.

In Maharashtra Kovind was expected to get 195 votes, but ended up with 208. In West Bengal, Kovind managed to get at least 5 votes from the opposition.

In Madhya Pradesh, Kumar got the support of 57 MLAs. The Congress has 56 MLAs in the state.

OneIndia News