The opposition Congress and NCP avoided cross voting in the presidential election on Thursday, data show.
Out of 283 votes cast in Maharashtra, 279 votes were declared valid. While NDA got 181 votes, UPA got 98 votes. Four votes were declared invalid. The numbers are likely to give relief to the Congress and the NCP, as all their votes are intact, avoiding cross-voting in favor of NDA candidate and President-elect Draupadi Murmu.
In all, 97 votes were cast for both the parties – 53 MLAs voted for the NCP and 44 from the Congress. The UPA has got one extra vote, which is likely to be the lone CPI(M) MLA.
election Day, BJP State President Chandrakant Patil had said that Murmu has got the support of 182 MLAs and to take this figure above 200 there will be cross voting in his favor.
There are a total of 288 MLAs in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, which has come down to 287 after his death. Shiv Sena MLA Ramesh Lakhe two NCP MLAs lodged in jail- Nawab Malik And Anil Deshmukh- didn’t vote. BJP MLA Laxman Jagtap also did not vote due to ill health, while Shiv Sena MLA Mahendra Dalvi did not vote as he was convicted in a case in May.
15 MLAs Who Have Not Joined The Party After Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray’s Order Eknath Shinde The faction also voted for Murmu, taking the total Shiv Sena votes to 55. The strength of BJP in the assembly is 106.
There are also 29 independent and small party MLAs in the assembly. During the floor test held last month, the BJP-Shinde alliance along with independent candidates got 164 votes. When the Thackeray faction promised Murmu the support of 15 of its MLAs, the number increased to 179. As per the available data, it has got two additional votes of independent MLAs.