Pranab Mukherjee voted India's 13th President
Baku, July 23 (AZERTAC). UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee will be India's 13th president. He got the overwhelming support of parliamentarians in the President's election on Sunday as he crossed the half way mark and won the presidential elections by a landslide margin. He defeated his close rival BJP-backed P Sangma. Pranab Mukherjee got a vote value of 5,58,194, crossing the required half-way mark of 5,25,140 after counting of votes in half the states was over.
Pranab led Jammu and Kashmir and surprisingly in Jharkhand where BJP shares power with JMM. In BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh Mukherjee trailed as expected.
In 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Mukherjee got 23 votes while Sangma won 44 votes. One vote was invalid. Mukherjee's vote value was 1173 while it was 2244 for Sangma.
Jammu and Kashmir gave Mukherjee 68 votes while Sangma got 15 votes. Two votes were declared invalid. Mukherjee's vote value here stands at 4896 while Sangma got 1080. The Assembly has 87 MLAs.
In 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, Mukherjee got 60 votes while Sangma won 20. Mukherjee's vote value is 10560 while Sangma's stands at 3520.
There has been apparent cross-voting in Karnataka where BJP runs a government. UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee got the majority votes in the 224 member Assembly with 117 MLAs voting for him. Sangma could get only 103 votes while three votes were invalid. One MLA did not vote.
The value of votes polled by Mukherjee was 15327 while it was 13493 for Sangma.
Fifteen votes including that of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were invalid.
Counting of ballots began amidst tight security in Parliament House here in the presence of authorised representatives of both Mukherjee and Sangma.
The ballot boxes of votes cast in Parliament House were taken up first for counting after which those from the states will be opened.
Authorised representatives inspected the seals of the ballot boxes and the counting began after ascertaining that they were not tampered with.
All the ballot boxes from the states had reached Parliament House yesterday and were kept in a strong room.
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).
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