Kovind first President from Sangh, cross-voting boosts margin

NEW DELHI: Former Bihar governor Ram Nath Kovind will become India's 14th President and the first RSS man to hold the post, winning a contest marked by cross-voting in his favour in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa as well as among Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha members.

Kovind, who will be sworn in as President on July 25, defeated the opposition candidate, former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, in a one-sided contest by garnering close to 66% of the vote. BJP managers estimated that Kovindreceived around 115 additional MLA votes beyond the NDA kitty in states.

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Met President Elect Shri Ram Nath Kovind Ji and congratulated him.

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BJP succeeded in pulling in votes from the opposition camp in four states as well as in Parliament. BJP managers said they had gained 10 excess votes in Bengal even as the Trinamool Congress and the Congress traded claims of cross-voting from each other's camps.

In Parliament, there were 21 invalid votes. It was not possible to exactly ascertain which side contributed more to this tally. The opposition could have hoped to get the votes of around 240 MPs, but got the support of 225 MPs. Kovind got the backing of 522 MPs.

The BJP candidate received two additional votes while as many as six were declared invalid in Delhi where there are only two parties in the assembly — BJP and AAP.

In West Bengal, BJP sources said, the party received six additional votes while nine were declared invalid.

In Rajasthan, the BJP candidate got six additional votes. Of the 57 Congress MLAs in Gujarat, Kumar got only 49 votes. Similarly, out of the 16 Congress MLAs in Goa, Kumar got 11 votes. While three Congress MLAs crossvoted, two votes were declared invalid.

As the final figures came in, BJP gained two votes in J&K, four in Haryana, 11 in UP, four in Himachal Pradesh, five in West Bengal, eight in Karnataka, 13 in Maharashtra, six in MP and two in Chhattisgarh.

BJP read the results as a vindication of its efforts to build pan-India support for Kovind. "This is a good sign for the party's efforts to put together a wide and far-ranging coalition ahead of the 2019 election. It shows BJP's acceptability among many parties and different regions," said Rajya Sabha MP Bhupendra Yadav, who coordinated Kovind's campaign.

The final tally of votes, which were counted at Parliament House on Thursday, shows that Kovind got 2,930 votes (MPs and MLAs) with a value of 7,02,044 (65.65%) as compared to 1,844 votes with a value of 3,67,314 (34.35%) received by Meira Kumar, defeating her with a margin of over 3.30 lakh vote value.

The 71-year-old Kovind will be only the second Dalit President of India after K R Narayanan. He will also be the first BJP neta to be elected to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

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20 years ago and the present…always been a privilege to know you, President Elect.

3:09 PM - 20 Jul 2017

 
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PM Modi, on his part, while congratulating Kovind, tweeted about his long association with the President-elect and posted an old picture with him on his timeline, saying: "20 years ago and the present... always been a privilege to know you, President-Elect."