New Delhi 14/7: With more allies leaving to support his opponent Droupadi Murmu, the numbers for Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha are shrinking in the Presidential election, with a latest analysis showing that his opponent has been pledged 60 per cent or 6.60 lakh votes in an electoral college of 10.86 lakh votes.
Sinha may end up with 39 per cent or 4.20 lakh votes, if all 4,809 elected MPs and MLAs (vote value of 10,86,431) cast their vote in the election scheduled on July 18 and no more Opposition parties jump the ship.
However, Sinha may have something to cheer about as he may end up as the Opposition candidate to bag the highest votes in a Presidential election. At present, Opposition candidate Meira Kumar holds the record bagging 3.67 lakh votes in 2017 polls against President Ram Nath Kovind
The BJP expects that they could attract more votes from the Opposition camp owing to Murmu’s candidature. They are looking at tribal MLAs from other parties in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat to vote for Murmu. Congress has around 85 tribal MLAs from these states.
To put in perspective, the NDA had around 5.32 lakh votes, around 9,000 less than the majority, at the time of the announcement of elections on June 9 while the UPA and its extended allies had around 4.45 lakh votes. Parties like YSR Congress, BJD and some others had around 90,000 votes.
Several non-NDA parties like Shiv Sena, YSR Congress, BJD, JMM, JD(S), BSP and TDP have pledged support to Murmu, a tribal, which has propelled Murmu’s votes. Sena was the latest to join the Murmu bandwagon, after party chief Uddhav Thackeray was forced to announce support in a desperate bid to contain rebellion in its Parliament wing.
The choice of Murmu has also put Trinamool Congress in a spot despite it pitching for Sinha as the Opposition candidate as the state has a substantial number of tribal votes. The discomfiture was evident when West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that if Murmu’s name was known earlier, they could think of supporting her. JMM also broke ranks with the Opposition as the BJP stumped them with choosing a tribal as its candidate.
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The analysis of various parties and their votes in the Presidential election showed that Murmu could bag 3.77 lakh of the votes from Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha MPs as against Sinha’s 1.65 lakh. From states, Murmu may get 2.82 lakh votes while Sinha could get only 1.65 lakh.
While Murmu’s victory is a foregone conclusion, she will not be getting a single vote from Kerala while Sinha will not be getting any vote from Andhra Pradesh and Nagaland. While JD(S) has announced its support for Murmu, its two MLAs, who are part of the ruling LDF, in Kerala will vote for Sinha and have conveyed the decision to party patriarch HD Deve Gowda.
Murmu may get votes from the Opposition camp as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal has already made it clear that he and his supporters prefer Murmu over Sinha. Another ally OP Rajbhar-led Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, which is upset with Akhilesh may also jump ship.