Presidential Elections: EC allows Amit Shah, Tarun Gogoi to vote from New Delhi

The Election Commission on Sunday allowed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, an MLA from Gujarat and former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi to cast their votes from New Delhi for tomorrow's Presidential elections.

Besides these two, 14 Rajya Sabha members and 41 Lok Sabha members have also been permitted to cast their votes in the states of their preference.

Lok Sabha MP and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya have been permitted to cast their votes in their state.

Normally, the Commission does not extend the facilities of casting vote by the MLA at any place of poll, other than his/her own state or at Parliament House, since it is very difficult to send the ballot papers of all the states to every other state.

"But there may be extreme cases where some MLAs may be forced to remain away from their own state on the day of the poll due to compelling and justifiable reasons and may not be able to cast their vote either at their own state headquarters or at Parliament House, New Delhi," an EC notification read.

"In order to enable such MLAs to cast vote during the current Presidential Election, the Commission has decided, in exceptional cases, to allow the MLA of any State to cast his/her vote at any State Headquarters other than his/her own if he/she applies for the Commission's permission well in advance," it added.

Tomorrow, NDA's Ramnath Kovind and Congress-led Opposition's Meira Kumar will face off with each other in the presidential polls.