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New Delhi: India will elect a new president
Thursday in what is a direct contest between ruling United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate Pranab Mukherjee and
opposition-backed Purno Sangma.
The polling will take place in the national and state capitals in
which an electoral college consisting of members of parliament and
the legislative assemblies will vote.
"All the necessary arrangements have been made for free and fair
poll and security arrangements in and around Parliament House and
particularly the venue of poll have been tightened," returning
officer and Rajya Sabha Secretary General V.K. Agnihotri told
reporters here Wednesday.
The votes will be counted Sunday, three days before the five-year
tenure of President Pratibha Patil ends.
The 13th Indian president is expected to enter Rashtrapati Bhavan
by July 25.
Mukherjee, who had served in the UPA government as finance
minister before entering the presidential fray, is the hot
favourite to win the election.
He is expected to bag over 735,000 of the 10,97,000 votes from
among 4,896 electors -- 776 MPs and 4,120 assembly members.
Besides UPA members Congress, Trinamool Congress, Nationalist
Congress Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, DMK and National Conference,
Mukherjee has the support of the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj
Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Janshakti Party and YSR Congress
Party, among others.
The Trinamool, which was undecided on its support for Mukherjee,
changed its mind two days before the poll and announced it would
vote for the UPA candidate with "a heavy heart" due to lack of
options.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, ahead of the voting Thursday,
hosted her UPA allies to lunch, in which Trinamool was represented
by two MPs.
It was also attended by other UPA partners including the DMK,
Rashtriya Lok Dal and Nationalist Congress Party, apart from
supporting parties such as the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata
Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party.
YSR Congress Party, which had remained undecided, announced
Wednesday that it had decided to support Mukherjee, apart from
backing UPA candidate Hamid Ansari for the vice president's post.
The party's MP Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy announced the decision
after a meeting chaired by party's honorary president Y.S.
Vijayalakshmi, claiming the decision was "above politics" as they
hoped Mukherjee would do justice to the constitutional post.
With the Communist Party of India-Marxist and Forward Bloc too
expressing support for Mukherjee and the Janata Dal-United and
Shiv Sena breaking away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
to back him, wide acceptance of his candidature is evident.
Those likely to abstain from voting are the Communist Party of
India, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Telugu Desam Party and
Telangana Rashtriya Samithi. These parties have around 36,000
votes.
Then there are around 32,000 votes with smaller parties who have
no presence in parliament but have legislators in the states.
Sangma, a former Lok Sabha speaker, was a senior Nationalist
Congress Party (NCP) leader before jumping into the presidential
race and had to quit its membership.
He is currently a member of the Meghalaya assembly.
He is expected to bag a maximum of 313,000 votes, being supported
by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Biju Janata Dal, AIADMK, Shiromani
Akali Dal and Asom Gana Parishad.
The churning witnessed in the country's political space has left
both the NDA and the Left Front divided. And, after anxious
moments over the last three weeks over Trinamool's indecisiveness,
the UPA has emerged united.
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