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Kovind’s share came down due to common Dalit factor: BJP leaders

-- 22 July,2017

New Delhi, July 22

NDA’s ruling candidate Ram Nath Kovind may have won the Presidential poll with a comfortable two-thirds majority but his vote share of 65.65 per cent is also the lowest since 1974.BJP leaders do not think it to be a cause of apprehension for the party-led coalition’s Vice-Presidential nominee M Venkaiah Naidu even though two non-NDA parties — JD(U) and BJD — who supported Kovind have pledged support to Opposition candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi.Defending their earlier claim that Kovind would poll close to 70 per cent votes, they say Opposition’s Presidential candidate Meira Kumar gathered a “higher-than-expected” 34.35 per cent vote share because of the “Dalit credentials” she shared with Kovind. “Kumar’s stature was higher than Gandhi, who also has no caste advantage like her,” they say, claiming not just a convincing win but a “better-than-Kovind” vote share for Naidu in the August 5 Vice-Presidential poll.Naidu, who started his political career as an MLA in Andhra Pradesh, has been a Parliamentarian since 1998 with “friends across the political spectrum”, they say in support of their argument.It remains to be seen whether Naidu manages to better the vote share of Kovind minus BJD’s eight members in the Rajya Sabha and 20 in the Lok Sabha and 10 of JD(U) in the Rajya Sabha and two in the Lok Sabha which could total a deficit of 40 to his tally.BJP leaders claim JD(U) will support NDA’s nominee. But the fact is the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar party has not only pledged support to Gandhi but senior party leader Sharad Yadav has also signed one of the nomination papers proposing the candidature.The Electoral College for the Vice-Presidential poll comprises Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs.According to the statistics released by the Lok Sabha on the day of polling for the post of the President, the sanctioned strength of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha is 776 and 771 MPs were eligible to cast votes. There are two vacancies each in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha while one BJP MP did not have voting rights following a judicial pronouncement.As per the statistics released yesterday, of the 776 votes polled, 768 were found valid. Kovind polled 522, Kumar 225 and 21 were declared invalid. Now even if all the 40 votes of BJD and JD(U) together with the 21 invalid votes are polled by Gandhi, it would still be a comfortable win for Naidu, they say. 

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