New Delhi: Droupadi Murmu on Thursday scripted history by being India’s first Tribal leader to have won the Presidential poll. She clinched the historic victory by bagging a total of 6,76,803 votes over her rival Yashwant Sinha who polled 3,80,177 votes. Making an official announcement after the fourth round of counting, Returning Officer P C Mody declared Murmu as the winner with 64.03 per cent votes. Sinha got 36 per cent of the valid votes polled.
Murmu bagged votes from a total of 2824 electors, including 540 MPs, while her rival Sinha got votes of 1,877 electors including 208 MPs in the election. There were a total of 4809 electors, including 776 MP with total vote value of 10,72,377, but votes of 53 electors including the maximum of 15 MPs were declared invalid in the election held on July 18.
“In my capacity as Returning Officer, I declare Droupadi Murmu as President of India," said Mody while declaring the final result of counting. Among states Murmu got the maximum votes from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh while Sinha's tally was highest in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. All MLAs from Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim voted in Murmu's favour, while in Arunachal Pradesh she got votes of all legislators except for four and all of all MLA except one in Nagaland. Sinha did not get a single vote from assemblies in Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland and Sikkim.
Murmu got maximum votes of Parliamentarians and least in Kerala where she got only one vote. Officials said the NDA candidate received two-thirds of the votes in all the earlier three rounds of counting. Conceding defeat, Opposition candidate Sinha congratulated Murmu and said that every Indian hopes that as the 15th President she functions as the "custodian of the Constitution" without fear or favour.
In a statement, Sinha thanked the leaders of the Opposition parties for choosing him as their consensus candidate in this election. “I also thank all members of the Electoral College who voted for me. I accepted the offer of Opposition parties solely guided by the philosophy of Karma Yoga preached by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita - Do your duty without expectation of the fruits thereof,” Sinha said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president J P Nadda visited Murmu's residence here to congratulate her. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also congratulated Murmu on her "impressive" win and asserted that her victory is proof of India democracy's strength. With each MP having a vote value of 700 in this presidential election, Murmu had a total vote value of 5,23,600 which is 72.19 per cent of the total valid vote count of MPs polled. /BI/
