Presidential election: 9 NDA parties have no votes for Kovind

The Bhartiya Janata Party has projected its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as a conglomeration of 33 political parties, but nine of these parties, including three from Tamil Nadu and four from Kerala, have not a single MP or MLA to vote for its presidential candidate Ramnath Kovind.

Even among 24 parties that will vote in the Presidential election, at least six have just one vote, for instance RPI (union minister Ramdas Athavale) Swabhimani Party (Maharashtra MP Raju Shetty alias Devappa Anna) and Hindustan Avam Morcha (Jharkhand MLA Jeetanram Manjhi).

Kovind was, however, able to file his nomination with the support of 28 parties as four parties who are not allies in the NDA also endorsed his nomination.

In contrast, Opposition candidate Meira Kumar was backed by 17 political parties and each and every party has both MPs as well as MLAs to participate in the presidential election.

The BJP managers say the victory of Kovind is self-evident as the numbers are in his favour but they are trying to secure a minimum of 70% votes to to speed past the record of present President Pranab Mukherjee and former President Pratibha Patil.

They are busy contacting the independents and parties with one or two MLAs in the states. On Thursday, Kovind secured support of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) of Haryana that has 2 MPs in the Lok Sabha, 1 in the Rajya Sabha and 19 MLAs during his visit to Haryana.

The BJP is also expecting to make inroads into the vote bank of Meira Kumar. Bolstered by Bihar CM Nitish Kumar extending his Janata Dal (U) support to Kovind, the BJP leaders are contacting other parties in the Opposition camp to increase their support base.

The party whip is prohibited in the presidential election slated on July 17 and hence the BJP leaders are approaching the MPs and MLAs in the Opposition camp for cross-voting without fear of any disciplinary action by their parties.