After Droupadi Murmu, the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA’s) Presidential candidate, unexpectedly received a Kerala MLA’s vote, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala was jubilant.
In the 140-member Kerala Assembly, NDA has no representation. Hence, all votes were expected to go to Opposition parties’ candidate, Yashwant Sinha. But Murmu got one vote from Kerala, with a value of 152, even though she never even visited Kerala for campaigning.
State leaders of Congress and CPM maintained there was no chance of any of their MLAs voting for Murmu.
The one vote for the BJP’s Presidential candidate came at a time when Congress and the CPM have been accusing each other of being part of the RSS-BJP nexus. And, because the voting for the Presidential election was through a secret ballot, both parties could safely maintain that their MLAs did not vote for Murmu.
Amidst this, BJP leaders in Kerala claimed that the one vote to Murmu from Kerala—despite having no BJP MLAs — revealed a tacit support for Narendra Modi government. Minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan said that the single vote was a message against the blind anti-Modi stand being maintained by the CPM and the Congress in Kerala.
BJP state president K Surendran also said that the one vote to Murmu was the only positive vote from the state, and was more valuable than the 139 votes that went to Sinha.
Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming the country's first tribal President, defeating Opposition's joint candidate Yashwant Sinha in an election where the MPs and MLAs voted to pick the country's constitutional head. The BJP neither has representation in the state Assembly nor in the Lok Sabha. The single vote polled to Murmu from Kerala has kicked up a debate in the Left-ruled state as the BJP valued it higher than the other 139 votes that went to Sinha while the ruling CPI(M) and opposition Congress did not want to pin the blame on anyone without knowing facts.
Reportedly, Janata Dal (Secular), a coalition partner of the ruling CPM, was in fix. While the party’s national leadership supported Murmu, state leaders had maintained that being a part of the Left Democratic Front in Kerala, the two JD(S) MLAs would support Sinha.
JD(S) state leader Neelalohithadasan Nadar told DH there was no chance either of the MLAs voted for Murmu. He said it was decided that the state unit would stay with LDF’s decision, especially since the JD(S) won Kerala elections with LDF’s support.
Although some sources pointed out there were some differences of opinion within the CPM and the Congress over Sinha’s candidature because he used to be a BJP leader at one point.
Responding to the matter, senior Congress leader V D Satheesan said no one actually knows what had happened in the presidential election. "It is not right to insult anyone without knowing the things properly," the Leader of Opposition told reporters in Kozhikode. When the media asked whether the ruling CPI(M) would look into any suspected incident of cross voting and probe who did it, party state secretary Balakrishnan asked how could it be done.
"If you(media) know a way please let us know," he told reporters here. When asked whether the party doubts any particular MLA, the Left leader said it was not right to blame anyone without any proof. "Normally you people (reporters) guess and write about such matters. But in this case, I couldn't find any such articles. CPI (M) MLAs will not do this," he added.
(With PTI inputs)
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