Indian Presidential Elections-2012: Pranab Mukherjee New President!
The Republic of India has got a new President elected today, July 22, 2012. Pranab Mukherjee, the former Finance Minister and the chief
trouble shooter for the coalition government of India , has been declared elected
for the top office. The poll for the post took place on 19th July
and counting of votes was taken up from today.
As expected,
Pranab Mukherjee swept the elections winning nearly 70 percent of total votes
cast. He got astounding support from the members of the Indian Parliament
irrespective of party lines. The votes in the Indian states split up depending
on which political party the particular state government belonged to, but there
were surprises too in some of them in favor of Pranab. The fact that Pranab
Mukherjee was a candidate no political party could possibly object got
vindicated in the results.
It had been a
straight contest between the UPA-2 (United Progressive Alliance—the ruling
coalition) nominated Pranab Mukherjee and the largely self-styled candidate PA
Sangma who was proposed by two regional parties initially and got nominated in
the last minute by the NDA (National Democratic Alliance—the opposition of
India), of course, with quite a few differences within it.
The Indian
Presidential Election is not a direct poll with the people of the country
voting while it is a direct election in the US . The system of Indian
Presidential Poll is based on proportionate voting—the voters being the Members
of both houses of Parliament (MP) and the Members of the Legislative Assemblies
(MLA) and the Legislative councils of the states and union territories of the
country. The value of the vote of An MLA is arrived at by dividing the total
population of the state by the number of MLAs of that state multiplied by 1000.
The vote value of an MP is arrived at by dividing the total of MLAs’ vote value
by the number of MPs. Then both of the vote values are added to arrive at the
grand total votes of the country. To get elected a Presidential candidate has
to cross the halfway benchmark of total vote value.
In the Indian
Presidential Elections-2012 Pranab Mukherjee secured 7, 13,763 votes crossing
the halfway mark of 5, 25,140 votes with quite a few members abstaining. PA
Sangma could secure only 3, 15,987 votes. Messages of greeting poured in for
Pranab and the Prime Minister, the Congress President and other dignitaries
visited him at his residence. The defeated candidate PA Sangma congratulated Pranab
too, but at the same time he announced his resolve to go to the court alleging bias
and partisanship in the process of the Presidential Elections-2012.
After a lot of
twists and turns, and bouts of acrimony in the race to the Presidential
Elections, India
has finally got a worthy personality for the top post. Congratulations to
Pranab Mukherjee! He is the 13th President of India to be elected
and will be sworn in on July 25, 2012. The outgoing President Pratibha Patil is
scheduled to deliver a farewell address to the nation on the evening of July
24.
Now it is over
to the people of USA
for electing their President.
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