Ram Nath Kovind’s vote share lowest since 1974: EC data
The lowest margin of victory for any presidential poll was during the 1969 election when then president V V Girri secured just 48 per cent of the total votes.
NEW DELHI: Ram Nath Kovind was on Thursday elected as the 14th President of India. Kovind scored a comfortable victory over his rival Meira Kumar with a margin of 65.65 per cent of the votes. But his vote share is the lowest since 1974, figures reveal.
Kovind received 2930 votes with a value of 7,02,044, while his rival Meira Kumar, the joint opposition candidate, secured got 1844 votes with a value of 3,67,314. This comes to a vote share of 65.65 per cent for the President-elect.
However, the victory margin is the lowest since the 1974 presidential poll.
According to Election Commission data, Kovind's immediate predecessor Pranab Mukherjee (2012) secured 69.31 per cent votes while Pratibha Patil (2007) got 65.82 per cent of the total votes, marginally higher than the share secured by Kovid.
K R Narayanan (1997) and A P J Abdul Kalam (2002) bagged 94.97 per cent and 89.57 per cent respectively, the highest victory percentages since 1974.
Only
Neelam
Sanjeeva
Reddy,
in
1977,
was
elected
unopposed
to
the
top
constitutional
post.
Gyani
Zail
Singh
(1982)
got
72.73
per
cent
votes,
while
R
Venkatraman
(1987)
bagged
72.28
per
cent.
Shankar
Dayal
Sharma
(1992)
got
65.87
per
cent.
Besides Narayanan, only two presidents -- Rajendra Prasad (98.99 per cent) in 1957, and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (98.24 per cent) in 1962 -- secured over 90 per cent of the votes.
In
the
first
presidential
election,
Prasad
bagged
83.81
votes.
The
low
percentage
is
often
attributed
to
a
so-called
'syndicate' within
the
Congress.
Fifteen candidates were the in the fray in this poll, the highest in any presidential election.
The lowest margin of victory for any presidential poll was during the 1969 election when then president V V Girri secured just 48 per cent of the total votes.
PTI