DEHRADUN: Droupadi Murmu was elected as India's 15th President on Thursday after she defeated her opponent Yashwant Sinha in the presidential election. She secured 2,824 first preference votes against her rival Sinha who managed to get 1,877 first preference votes.
While Murmu's win was already certain given the strength of the NDA alliance in both Houses of the Parliament and several state assemblies, the vote margin with which she won the Presidential election shows that she garnered support from opposition parties too.
In Uttarakhand, Murmu was expected to get the votes of 47 BJP MLAs, two BSP and two independent MLAs. However, BJP's Bageshwar MLA Chandan Ram Das, who is also the transport minister, could not cast his vote due to poor health. Therefore, she should have secured 50 (51-1) votes from the Himalayan state. However, Murmu, now the President-elect, clinched 51 votes in U'khand which political analysts here say implies that at least one Congress MLA also voted for the NDA candidate.
Meanwhile, Sinha was supposed to get 19 votes from as many Congress MLAs in the hill state but he got only 15 votes from Uttarakhand as two party MLAs didn't turn up to cast their vote, one vote was declared invalid, and one legislator voted for Murmu.
Taking note of the matter, the state Congress unit has maintained that the issue is being reviewed and required action would be taken.
Uttarakhand Congress vice president (organisation) Mathura Dutt Joshi told TOI, “The party is aware of the development and we are looking into the matter. The senior members are reviewing the situation and the required steps will be taken.”
