Presidential election 2022: Voting ends in Andhra Pradesh, 172 MLAs exercise franchise

Amaravati, July 18: Polling for the presidential election ended in Andhra Pradesh as all but three of the 175 MLAs cast their votes in the Legislative Assembly polling station here on Monday.

Voting that began at 10 am, with Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy casting the first vote, concluded at 3.15 pm when Guntur MLA Maddali Giridhar (TDP rebel) cast the last vote.

Two Telugu Desam MLAs, Nandamuri Balakrishna and Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdary, were among the notable absentees as they were said to be on a foreign visit.

The ruling YSR Congress' M Mahidhar obtained special permission and exercised his franchise in the Telangana Legislative Assembly as he was undergoing treatment in Hyderabad.

Polling began on a brisk note at 10 am when Assembly Speaker Tammineni Sitaram followed the Chief Minister in voting.

Ministers and MLAs of the ruling party lined up thereafter and cast their votes.

Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu led his Telugu Desam Party legislators in voting at 12 noon in the polling booth in the Assembly Committee Hall.

By 12.30 pm, 161 of 175 votes were cast. The next 11 MLAs took close to three hours to complete the process.

Giridhar was down with Covid-19 and, as such, some special arrangements had to be made to enable him to vote.

Andhra Pradesh is probably the only state where the ruling and the opposition parties are supporting the NDA's presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu.

This is also the first time that the rival parties are on one side in a presidential election.

The YSRC has 31 MPs (nine in Rajya Sabha and 22 in Lok Sabha) and 151 MLAs in the state Assembly.

The TDP has one member in Rajya Sabha, three members in Lok Sabha besides 23 MLAs (including three rebels).

The BJP has one MP in Rajya Sabha. Though technically the Jana Sena has one MLA, he has been sailing with the YSRC since his election in 2019. The Congress has no presence in AP.

As such, all votes from AP are presumed to be in favour of Murmu.

In the 2017 presidential election, the Congress had four Rajya Sabha members who supported the then opposition candidate. As the TDP was then part of the NDA, it voted for the latter's nominee, along with the alliance partner BJP. The YSRC, then in opposition, also voted for the NDA candidate.