Prez polls: TRS may support NDA, Swami to negotiate with AIADMK

The NDA appears to be nearing its gap of nearly 17000 votes it requires for clinching the presidential polls, with non-NDA party Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) showing inclination to support the NDA in the race for the top Constitutional post.

Simultaneously,  BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has volunteered to negotiate with AIADMK (Sasikala faction) to get votes the NDA is short off in the election which will be due in July on the retirement of Pranab Mukherjee.

TRS leader in the Lok Sabha AP Jitender Reddy said "till now we are offering issue based support to the Centre". We "will take decision when required," Reddy said when asked about his party's stand on the issue. The TRS is unhappy with Congress and even got its senior leader Digvijay Singh booked for accusing Telangana police of radicalising Muslim youth through fake ISIS sites.
 
The TRS has 22048 votes value calculated on the strength of its 82 MLAs and 17 parliamentarians. The value of each vote of a parliamentarian from both the Houses has been fixed at 708. And the vote value of a legislator is determined on the population of the state he or she belongs to.

After, the BJP swept UP and Uttarakhand,  the NDA has about 5.32 lakh vote value as against 5,49,442 required to elect a president. The value of votes in the total electoral college is 10, 98882.

Even though the opposition is attempting to put a united fight to counter the NDA in the presidential election, the BJP is waiting for them to announce its candidate before declaring its card.

Swamy, however, claimed that the party was not tensed with opposition's move. The party's Rajya Sabha member stated that the All AIADMK led by Sasikala group has 80,000 value votes, which he can tap to overcome defiencency of "less than 20,000 votes" for a clear cut majority.

"They (Sonia and Rahul) can unite everybody who`s willing to come with them. But the BJP`s shortage is only 20,000 value votes, may be even less. There are certain parties which will not come if some other parties is in it. For example, the AIADMK will not come if the DMK is there," Swamy told a news agency.