Droupadi Murmu, Yashwant Sinha's nomination papers for presidential poll found in order

Ninety-two people, including nine women, wanted to try their luck to be the President of India along with ruling BJP’s Droupadi Murmu and Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha but none could make it, as they could not find 100 lawmakers to sign their papers or deposit Rs 15,000.

After the scrutiny of nominations, only Murmu and Sinha are in the fray. Of the 92, nominations of 26 who filed 28 papers did not even reach the scrutiny level as they were rejected at the time of filing of nomination itself as they did not provide a certified copy to prove that their names were in the electoral rolls.

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A total of 115 nomination papers – 77 in English and 38 in Hindi – were filed by 94 people during the two week window that started on June 15. Of the 94, 10 were women, including Murmu.

Eighty-seven nomination papers of 72 people were left for scrutiny after rejection of 28 papers at the initial stage itself.

Of this, only nominations of Murmu and Sinha, four each sets, were found in order while others were rejected for want of 50 each proposers and seconders or not depositing Rs 15,000.

A total of 318 nomination papers were collected by aspirants. People have filed nomination papers from assigned places in 17 states, including Delhi. According to official figures, the maximum number of candidates have filed nomination from Delhi (23), UP), Maharashtra (14) and Tamil Nadu (14). Five from Karnataka also filed the nominations but all were rejected.

Authorities collected Rs 9.30 lakh as security deposit but it will return it to those whose nominations are rejected.

Only once in the history of Presidential elections has a President chosen without an election – in 1977 when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy was elected. However, it happened mainly because the Returning Officer rejected nominations for all 36 other than Reddy on scrutiny.

Incidentally, Reddy is the only candidate to have become the President after losing a battle earlier. In 1969, he lost to VV Giri after then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stumped her party colleagues in an inner-party war and called for a conscience vote. The battle saw 15 candidates vying for the post, out of which five scored nothing.

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Also, the direct contest for the President post appears to have become a convention since 1997 when K R Narayanan, who got the highest votes 9.56 lakh out of 10.06 lakh against former Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan – became the President.

The highest number of contestants – 17 – was in 1967 elections when Dr Zakir Hussain won the Presidentship. Nine of the 17 contestants did not get a single vote.

Altogether there were 67 candidates in the Presidential polls since the first in 1952. Of this, only seven were women. Since 2002 polls, there was a woman in the contest, except 2012 and in 2007, Pratibha Patil went on to become the President.

In 2017, Opposition fielded former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar but lost while this time, the ruling BJP has fielded Murmu, who could be the country’s second woman and first tribal President.