TNI Bureau: There was no surprise, no miracle or no big change. Veteran Congress leader and former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was elected the 13th President of India in a contest, which turned out to be a battle between unequals. Mukherjee beat former Lok Sabha Speaker PA Sangma by a huge margin.
Pranab Mukherjee polled 69.31 per cent of total votes. A total of 713,937 votes were in favour of Pranab out of the total 10,29,924 votes, while his opponent Sangma managed to get 315,987 votes or 30.69 per cent of the total votes.
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In the Indian Parliament, Pranab got the support of 527 out of 748 MPs valued at 373,116 votes. Sangma got 145,848 votes from 206 MPS. While other states in India voted on expected likes, Sangma got a huge setback in Karnataka and Meghalaya (his own state).
At least 14 BJP MLAs in Karnataka did cross-voting in favour of Pranab Mukherjee, putting the party in an embarrasment position. In West Bengal, Pranab Mukherjee got 275 votes, while Sangma managed to get just three votes.
Pranab Mukherjee will be sworn-in as the 13th President of India on July 25. He thanked all political parties and people of India for their overwhelming support, while Sangma called for introduction of code of conduct in the Presidential Polls so that the incumbent government does not “induce” the states and other parties with packages. Sangma congratulated Pranab for occupying the highest office in the country.