All eyes are on Nitish, who voted for UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee in 2012 while in NDA and Ram Nath Kovind in 2017 in alliance with RJD.
All eyes are on Nitish, who voted for UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee in 2012 while in NDA and Ram Nath Kovind in 2017 in alliance with RJD.
The opposition parties are considering giving a tough competition to the 16th presidential election. by nominating Yashwant Sinha As their candidate, the opposition is now hoping to bring in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) on its side, to intensify the fight a bit more. For the past several weeks, the JD(U) and the BJP have been at each other’s throats, and the latest point of friction is the government’s new military recruits. yojana agneepath,
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Nitish Kumar has an interesting history in the presidential election. In 2012, when he was part of the NDA alliance, he voted for UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee. And in 2017, when he was in Grand Alliance with RJD, he voted for NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind. Just weeks after Mr. Kovind was elected, Mr. Kumar had pulled out of the Grand Alliance and returned to the NDA. Noting this trend, opposition parties are hoping that Mr Kumar may vote with him, with whom he has had an uneasy relationship since the Bihar 2020 assembly results, to send a message to the BJP. JD(U) leaders have remained silent about the party’s voting preference. JD(U) has 22,769 votes which will take the opposition tally to 4.5 lakh.
Only Members of Parliament and members of the State Legislative Assembly can vote in this election. The value of one vote for each MP is 700 and for each MLA, the value varies according to the strength of the population they represent.
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Presidential elections are often fixed matches where the results are known before play begins. The best bet for the opposition is to make it a tough contest by narrowing the government’s victory margin and giving them some worrying moments.
The way the numbers stack up currently, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance has around 5.23 lakh votes in an electoral college of over 10 lakh votes and nearly 20,000 votes short of the majority mark. They are hoping to bridge the gap with the support of the Biju Janata Dal, which has 31,705 votes and the YSR Congress with 45,798 votes.
“It is a closer fight than people anticipated. And it will not be easy for the government,” told Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh Hindu,
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Eleven opposition parties (Congress, Trinamool Congress, DMK, Shiv Sena, NCP, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, AIMIM, JMM, National Conference, AIUDF) and the Left Front together have 3.8. Million votes. If Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Aam Aadmi Party extend support to Mr. Sinha – this number will reach 4.26 lakhs. The opposition is counting on the support of several other smaller parties which are taking the numbers closer to the NDA.
In 2017, Opposition candidate Meira Kumar who fought against incumbent President Ram Nath Kovindgot 3.67 lakh votes, which was the highest number of votes received by a lost candidate, breaking the 50-year record.