Dots and commas among reasons for rejection of votes in presidential poll

Dots and inverted commas have come to confound political parties, who are seeking to identify rebels during the 2017 presidential poll.

These led to the rejection of votes by 21 MPs and 56 MLAs, triggering much curiosity and concern among parties.

These 77 votes, with a value of 20,942, might be inconsequential to the outcome: NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind romped home with a margin of 3.67 lakh (in terms of value of votes). But there is no full stop in politics, as then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi said after the UPA’s victory in 2009.

Both the NDA and the opposition camps are anxious to know how many of the 77 invalid votes were a result of inadvertent errors and how many were by design. Over a hundred legislators were estimated to have crossvoted in valid votes.