VIJAYAWADA: While the stage is set for the election of the next President of India, a curious aspect in AP is that the BJP that has no seat and vote in the state would win all the votes.
This, as both the ruling YSRC and the opposition parties including the Telugu Desam have extended their support to the BJP nominee. The polling will be held today, across all states, and officials have made foolproof arrangements in the Assembly complex in Amaravati for the voting.
MLAs and MPs form the electoral college for the President poll.
There are 151 MLAs and 22 MPs for the YSRC, three MPs and 23 MLAs for the TD. One MLA who was elected on the Jana Sena ticket later shifted his allegiance to the YSRC.
The BJP, however, will not be so blessed even in the states where it is the ruling party. Murmu, NDA’s presidential candidate, will not get all the polled votes in other states where Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha too have been promised support by several parties.
AP does not have legislators for the Congress, the two Communist parties etc who are backing Sinha.
Here, however, the YSRC and TD competed with each other to extend their support to Droupadi Murmu. It was the YSRC that first announced its support for her on June 23. The TD initially tried to make political capital by asking the YSRC to press the demand for Special Category Status (SCS) for AP as a condition for supporting Murmu. But, chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy did not do this as he maintained healthy relations with the BJP and its central leadership including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
TD, eager for the past three years to restore its old political ties with the BJP, tried to get a call from the saffron party for TD’s support to Murmu, but in vain. After a few days, Chandrababu Naidu convened a party meeting on July 11 and announced TD’s unconditional support to Murmu. This was just a day before the NDA nominee’s visit to the state to seek votes for her.
Chandrababu Naidu and other leaders met Murmu in Vijayawada on July 12.
There are a total of 36 MPs from AP in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, whose total vote value is 25,488. The total vote value of the 175 MLAs is 27,825. Thus, the total value of votes from AP in the President poll is 53,313.
In this, the vote value of YSRC MPs and MLAs is 45,957. The YSRC has 22 Lok Sabha MPs and nine Rajya Sabha MPs, whose votes value is 21,948. The votes value of 151 MLAs of the YSRC is 24,009. Hence, the ruling party is playing an important role in the election of the new Rashtrapati.
CM Jagan has initiated measures for the casting of votes without any confusion and issued instructions to the MLAs and MPs. The YSRC would conduct a mock polling held on Monday, before the start of the actual polling, in order to avoid any confusion among legislators as to how to vote.
Similarly, Naidu has given instructions to TD legislators to ensure they voted without any hassle.
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