NEW DELHI: Defying their parties’ stated support for Opposition joint presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha, more than 120 MLAs, mostly from the Congress, cross-voted in favour of NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu. Besides the legislators, 17 Opposition MPs also voted in favour of Murmu in the election held on July 18. Murmu polled 676,803 and Sinha secured 380,177 votes.
MLAs in significant numbers from Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, among others, cast their ballots for Murmu.
While 22, 19, 16 and 12 legislators from Assam, MP, Maharashtra and UP, respectively, cross-voted for Murmu, MLAs from Gujarat and Jharkhand (10 each), Bihar and Chhattisgarh (six each), Rajasthan (five) and Goa (four) voted for the NDA candidate.
In a tweet, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma indicated Opposition MLAs cross-voted on July 18. “Droupadi Murmu polled 104 votes compared to NDA’s original strength of 79 in the 126 member Assam Assembly. 2 absent,” he said.
“Voted as per conscience” was a common refrain among some MLAs. In the case of Gujarat, where the Congress has 63 MLAs, besides the support of a lone independent legislator (Jignesh Mevani), 57 voted for Sinha.
This means that seven Congress MLAs threw in their lot for Murmu. One Nationalist Congress Party MLA voted for Murmu. NCP MLAs from Maharashtra also voted for her.
In MP, the ruling BJP’s state president V D Sharma said at least 19 MLAs cross-voted in favour of Murmu.
“All those who voted in favour of the NDA candidate are visionaries, as they voted in line with popular sentiments of people,” Sharma said.
"Today, I can say with pride that in Madhya Pradesh, 19 MLAs (from non-BJP background) voted as per the voice of their conscience in favour of sister Droupadi Murmu. It has exposed the anti-tribal face of former chief ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh (of the Congress)," Sharma told reporters.
In the 230-member Assembly, the BJP has 127 MLAs and the Congress 96.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has two members, the Samajwadi Party (SP) one MLA, while there are four independent legislators in the House.
The BSP and the SP had formally extended their support to Murmu, who was the candidate of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
In Bihar, BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal claimed that eight RJD MLAs extended their support to Murmu.
The NDA nominee received the votes of 133 MLAs even as the number of legislators from the ruling alliance is 127.
Jaiswal Friday claimed that "resentment" against the Leader of Opposition, Tejashwi Yadav got reflected in the presidential poll in which Draupadi Murmu got more votes than the number NDA had in its kitty.
Jaiswal, who did not mention Yadav by name, accused the RJD leader of treating his supporters, especially those from his own caste, as "vassals".
"Our (NDA's) effective strength in the assembly was 125, as one of our MLAs could not vote. Murmu was supported by 133 members. This is evidence of cross-voting on a substantial scale," he said.
The BJP leader said this had happened because of the resentment in the opposition camp against its leader who considered all his supporters as his "halwaha, charwaha" (vassals).
In an apparent reference to Yadav's recent claim that Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai had once expressed the desire to join RJD, Jaiswal said "He cannot brook any member of the Yadav community making it on his own. Such Yadavs become target of his smear campaign".
Jaiswal, who is a Lok Sabha MP, also mocked Yadav for flaunting RJD's strength in the 243-strong assembly.
"We have many leaders who are more experienced and competent than he is. But he has the temerity to look down upon us just because he won 75 seats, out of more than 150 he fought. We (BJP) had contested only 110 seats and we won 74", said Jaiswal.
The saffron party's strength has now risen to 77 with three members of the expelled state minister Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insaaan Party (VIP) having jumped ship.
The RJD remains the single largest party with 80 MLAs, having wrested one assembly seat from VIP in a by-poll and weaned away all but one of the five members of Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM.
Leader of opposition in West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari on Friday claimed that several TMC MLAs and MPs voted in favour of Murmu.
Of the 291 MLAs who voted, 216 were cast in favour of opposition presidential nominee Yashwant Sinha, while 71 votes were cast in favour of Murmu.
Four votes were declared invalid.
"As promised by me all 70 @BJP4Bengal (BJP) MLAs voted in favour of Smt. Draupadi Murmu ji. While 1 @AITCofficial (TMC) MLA cross voted in favour of the President Elect, 4 TMC MLAs ensured that their votes were regarded invalid. 71 votes were polled in favour of Smt. Murmu ji in WB Assembly (sic)," Adhikari tweeted.
"Out of the 34 @AITCofficial MPs (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha combined) who cast their votes at the WB Assembly, at least 4 cross voted in favour of Smt. Draupadi Murmu ji.2 got counted in her favour and other 2 were regarded invalid. Saffron greetings to those 4 TMC MPs," he added.
The BJP had kept its MLAs at a luxury hotel in New Town near Kolkata ahead of the presidential election on July 18 to prevent any cross-voting.
Former BJP state president Rahul Sinha said there was ample proof that several TMC MLAs and MPs voted in favour of Murmu.
"Many TMC MLAs and MPs are not happy with the functioning of the party's top leadership. This cross-voting is the manifestation of their disgruntlement," Sinha said.
Hitting back at the BJP, TMC claimed that there was no possibility of any cross-voting by its lawmakers.
"No such cross-voting took place by TMC lawmakers. There are no 'Mirzafars' (traitors) in our party anymore. TMC is a disciplined party, there is not a single possibility of anyone of our party supporting the candidate propped up by a communal party like BJP," state minister Firhad Hakim said.
In the 294-member House, 291 votes were cast in the presidential election.
(With PTI Inputs)