Pranab Mukherjee elected India’s President

Veteran politician Pranab Mukherjee won the Presidential election on Sunday by a convincing margin defeating the opposition candidate P.A. Sangma. He will be sworn in on July25.

The UPA nominee supported by even some non-Congress parties thanked the people for his election to India's highest office and said it would be his responsibility to defend and protect the Constitution. "I have deep gratitude and appreciation for the people of this great country for conferring this distinction of electing me to the high office," Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi.

"It would now be my responsibility to defend and protect the Constitution as President ... I would try to justify in modest way to be trustworthy of my people," he said. Mukherjee had polled over 7 lakh votes, more than what incumbent President Pratibha Patel received.
the final result was still awaited and would be declared by the returning officer.

According to Mukherjee, during the last one month of campaigning for the presidential election he visited all the state capitals but interacted only with the legislators. Still, he said, he could feel the overwhelming support and affection of ordinary people.

"The overwhelming support and affection of ordinary people which I felt during the tour was really remarkable," he said. He also thanked all sections of society, the political parties and parliamentarians for the support during his more than four decades of public life.

"I received much more than I gave them," he said.

Mukherjee appreciated the congratulations from his rival Sangma.

The former Finance Minister got the magic figures (around 5.18 lakh worth of votes) to become new President of India during the counting of votes at Parliament House. Mukherjee got the magic figure during the counting of votes of Maharashtra.

As expected, the UPA constituents and its key supporting parties like SP, BSP, RJD and others had supported Mukherjee. Besides, he also got the support of opposition parties like Shiv Sena and JD(U).

The former NCP leader Sangma got over 3 lakh votes mainly from the MPs belong to BJP, BJD, SAD and AIADMK. Among MLAs, he got votes mostly in BJP-ruled states like Goa, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Interestingly, the BJP-ruled Karnataka witnessed cross-voting during Presidential poll. Over a dozen BJP MLAs might have voted in favour of Pranab Mukherjee who got 117 votes. Sangma got 103 votes in the state.

Mukherjee got the overwhelming support of Parliamentarians (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs) in the President's election securing a vote value of 3,73,116. He got the remaining vote value (1.36lakh) to reach the magic number (majority mark of 5.18) lakh) from the MLAs who cast their votes in his favour.

Sangma, on the other hand, managed to get a vote value of only 1,45,848 in the counting of votes of MPs. His vote value increased to over 2.2 lakh when votes of MLAs of BJP-ruled states counted.

A total of 748 MPs voted in the election on July 19. Of the total votes, Mukherjee got 527 votes while Sangma got 206. Fifteen votes including that of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were invalid.

As many as 95 per cent of the 4,896 electors -- 776 MPs and 4,120 MLAs -- had exercised their franchise on Thursday at the polling centers set up in Parliament House and 30 other states and Union territories with assemblies.

- Asian Tribune –