Presidential Poll 2017: Cross-voting adds sheen to Kovind's win

Presidential-elect Ram Nath Kovind’s entry to Rashtrapati Bhavan was catalysed by the MLAs of the opposition camp who defied the diktat from their high command and casted their vote in favour of the BJP-led NDA nominee.

A state-wise breakup of the results show that more than 100 MLAs favoured Kovind and cross-voted for him.

President-elect Ram Nath Kovind had received 2,930 votes with a value of 7,02,044 to win the election with about 66 percent vote share. While, Meira Kumar received 1,844 votes with the value of 3,67,314.

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According to the BJP managers Kovind received around 116 additional MLA votes.

Cross-voting were majorly reported from states including Maharashtra, Goa, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and also from Gujrat and Rajasthan which are bound for Assembly Election later this year.

BJP leader Bhupendra Yadav told the media, “In Himachal Pradesh, we got 30 when we were expecting 26. In Madhya Pradesh we got 171, we were expecting 165. Jammu and Kashmir, we got 58 instead of 56.”

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He added, “In Maharasthra we got 208 against 185, Tripura seven against zero, Karnataka 56 against 46, Puducherry 10 against zero, Uttar Pradesh 335 against 324, Chhattisgarh 52 against 47, Jharkhand 51 against 47, West Bengal 11 against 5, Assam 91 against 87.”