Kovind led in 21 states, benefited from cross-voting too

NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind led in 21 states as also in both houses of Parliament over his rival Meira Kumar to register a thumping victory in the Presidential election, apart from cross-voting by those from the SP, Trinamool Congress and AAP.

Meira Kumar, fielded by 18 opposition parties, including the Congress and the Left, led only in eight states and two union territories. She could not open her account in Andhra Pradesh where her party Congress has one MLA.

Of the votes of parliamentarians, Kovind got 522 votes compared with 225 votes of Meira Kumar. The value of votes of MPs received by Kovind was 3,69,576 and that by Kumar was 1,59,300.

The states where Kovind trounced Meira Kumar are Andhra Pradesh (171 votes to nil), Arunachal Pradesh (56-24) , Assam (91-35), Bihar (130-109), Chhattisgarh (52-35), Goa (25-11), Gujarat (132-49), Haryana (73-16), Jammu and Kashmir (56-30), Jharkhand (51-26), Madhya Pradesh (171-57), Maharashtra (208-77), Manipur (37-19), Nagaland (56-1), Odisha (127-17), Rajasthan (166-34), Sikkim (28-1), Tamil Nadu (134-98), Telangana (97-20), Uttarakhand (59-11) and Uttar Pradesh (335-65).

Meira Kumar led in Himachal Pradesh (37-30), Karnataka (163-56), Kerala (138-1), Meghalaya (41-8), Mizoram (31-6), Punjab (95-18), Tripura (53-7) and West Bengal (273-11).

In the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Meira Kumar led 55-6 and in Puducherry 19-10.

In Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party has only four MLAs. Kovind has got two votes, including apparently of Kapil Mishra, the suspended Aam Aadmi Party MLA.

In Uttar Pradesh, where the Samajwadi Party (SP) is riven by factional strife, Shivpal Yadav, the brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, had openly declared that he and some other MLAs voted for Kovind.

In Tripura, six suspended lawmakers voted for the winning candidate.

The total votes declared invalid were 77, including 21 cast in Parliament House.

The value of the vote of each MP is 708 while that of an MLA varies in every state according to their population. The lowest vote value is seven in Sikkim and the highest 208 in Uttar Pradesh.

There was 99.41 per cent polling in the July 17 election.

--IANS

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