Vice President BS Shekhawat resigns
New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) The counting for the coveted post of President of India is finally over and UPA-candidate Pratibha Patil is officially now the first woman Head of State. Pratibha Patil took an early lead when she bagged 223 votes in Andhra Pradesh, a huge lead over NDA-backed independent candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. With the UPA-Left combine solidly backing her, her victory has been a foregone conclusion for sometime now.
When the counting of votes in 14 states was completed, Patil had won 233,884 votes leaving Vice President Shekhawat, an independent candidate backed by the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), with 156,186 votes.The legislators in Kerala, Mizoram and Tripura voted only for Patil as Shekhawat drew a blank in both the states. It was a sweep for Patil in her home state Maharashtra, where she won the support of 223 MLAs leaving 58 for Shekhawat.It was a similar story in Haryana with her getting 74 to Shekhawat's 6, Himachal Pradesh (47-20), Manipur (55-5), Meghalaya (49-6) Andhra Pradesh (223-2), Arunachal Pradesh (58-1), Assam (92-20, four votes were invalid), Jharkhand (49-28) Delhi (50-19), Goa (25-14), Nagaland (40-12), Sikkim (31-1) and Tamil Nadu (171-59).
According to early information, Patil has won more votes than her Congress party expected. She is supported by the UPA, Left and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).The counting began at 11 a.m. in Room No. 62 of the parliament building where 692 MPs registered their votes Thursday.The ballot boxes from the 30 assembly houses across the country have been brought to the national capital for counting. According to parliament sources, the Election Commission is doing the counting according to the alphabetical order of the states.While Patil is expected to get more than 600,000 votes from the electoral college, Shekhawat may get around 300,000.The new president, to succeed A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, will be sworn in on July 25. 