Pranab Mukherjee elected India's 13th President

Its Pranab Dada finally to win the coveted President ship of world’s largest democracy. UPA presidential candidate and former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee got the magic figures (around 5.18 lakh worth of votes) to become new President of India. He got the required number during the ongoing counting of votes at Parliament House in Delhi on 22 July 2012. 

As expected, the UPA constituents and its key supporting parties like SP, BSP, RJD and others had supported Mukherjee. Besides, he also got the support of opposition parties like Shiv Sena and JD(U). 

Mukherjee defeated the BJP-backed presidential candidate P A Sangma. The former NCP leader Sangma got his votes mainly from the MPs belong to BJP, BJD, SAD and AIADMK. Among MLAs, he got votes mostly in BJP-ruled states like Goa, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. Interestingly, the BJP-ruled Karnataka witnessed cross-voting during Presidential poll. Ongoing counting shows that over a dozen BJP MLAs might have voted in favour of Pranab Mukherjee who got 117 votes. Sangma got 103 votes in the state. 

Mukherjee got the overwhelming support of Parliamentarians (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs) in the President's election securing a vote value of 3, 73, 116. He got the remaining vote value (1.36lakh) to reach the magic number (majority mark of 5.18) lakh) from the MLAs who cast their votes in his favour. 

Sangma, on the other hand, managed to get a vote value of only 1, 45, 848 in the counting of votes of MPs. His vote value increased to over 2.2 lakh when votes of MLAs of BJP-ruled states counted. 

A total of 748 MPs voted in the election on July 19. Of the total votes, Mukherjee got 527 votes while Sangma got 206. Fifteen votes including that of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were invalid.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/government-news/item/1590-pranab-mukherjee-elected-india-s-13th-president.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/government-news/item/1590-pranab-mukherjee-elected-india-s-13th-president.html