Presidential Election 2022: Multiple Opposition MLAs create stir by voting for Draupadi Murmu

New Delhi, July 18: Some MLAs of opposition parties cast their vote in favour of BJP-led NDA candidate Draupadi Murmu instead of joint Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.

Among them are NCP legislators in Jharkhand and Gujarat and Congress MLAs in Haryana and Odisha who said they followed the voice of their conscience.

An Akali MLA in Punjab boycotted the presidential election citing non-redressal of issues relating to the state.

In Assam, IUDF MLA Karimuddin Barbhuiyan claimed that around 20 Congress MLAs from the state voted for Murmu on Monday.

In Uttar Pradesh, Shivpal Singh Yadav also claimed that he would never support Yashwant Sinha, as he had once accused his brother and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav of being an "ISI agent".

Haryana Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi, who cross-voted in last month's Rajya Sabha polls, said he has voted according to his conscience in the presidential election too.

Indicating that he supported Murmu rather than Opposition's Yashwant Sinha, Bishnoi said in Delhi, "Like in Rajya Sabha, I have cast my vote in this election too as per my conscience".

Voting in the presidential election is done through a secret ballot and parties cannot issue whips to their MPs and MLAs. Congress MLA in Odisha Mohammed Moquim created a flutter by announcing that he has voted in favour of Murmu as she was a "daughter of Odisha".

In Gujarat, the Nationalist Congress Party MLA Kandhal Jadeja also said he voted for Murmu in the presidential election.

In 2020, the NCP had issued a show cause notice to Jadeja, the lone party MLA in Gujarat from Kutiyana seat in Porbandar, for defying the whip and cross-voting in Rajya Sabha polls.

In Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal legislator Manpreet Singh Ayali decided to boycott the presidential poll, saying issues related to Punjab remain unresolved and he was not consulted by his party leadership before deciding to back the NDA candidate.

The Dakha MLA said he spoke to voters and workers in his constituency, and took the decision considering "sentiments of 'Panth' (Sikh community).

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has three legislators in the 117-member Punjab Assembly. With regional parties like the BJD, YSRCP, BSP, TDP, JDS and SAD lending their support to Murmu in the presidential poll, cross-voting by several opposition legislators in state assemblies during polling on Monday is likely to help push her vote share further.

Some parties like Shiv Sena and JMM have already broken ranks with their allies in the UPA to support a woman tribal to become the next President of India.

The BJP is seeking to increase the total votes in favour of Murmu to above seven lakh out of a total of 10,86, 431 votes. In the last presidential poll in 2017, NDA's Ram Nath Kovind won by polling 7,02,044 votes out of a total of 10,69,358 votes, against Meira Kumar of the UPA who polled 3,67,314 votes.