Gandhinagar: 8 Congress MLAs in Gujarat have cast their votes in favor of BJP led NDA presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind instead of Congress candidate Meira Kumar. This is revealed in counting of votes today.

Out of total 182 MLAs in Gujarat Assembly, 181 had cast vote while Janta Dal United(JDU) MLA from Jhagadia Chhotubhai Vasava had stayed away from voting citing the reasons related to tribal issues.

All Congress, BJP, NCP MLAs and dissolved party GPP candidate Nalin Kotadiya had cast their votes.

Out of total 181 votes, BJP led NDA candidate Ram Nath Kovind has got 132 votes while Congress-led opposition candidate Miera Kumar has got 49 votes.

Congress has the strength of 57 members in Gujarat Assembly.

Sharad Pawar led NCP which was openly in support of Congress candidate has two MLAs.

One MLA Nalin Kotadiya who won year 2014 assembly election in then existing Keshubhai Patel led Gujarat Parivartan Party(GPP) said he voted for Congress candidate.

The total number of votes for Congress candidate ideally therefore should be 60. However the actual number declared today in favor of Congress is 49 which clearly shows shortfall of 11 expected votes.

So how many Congress candidate cast vote against the party candidate? There are two likely scenario which can answer this question:

-If NCP MLAs and Kotadiya actually voted for Meira Kumar as they say publicly, then we can safely say that 11 Congress MLAs cast vote for BJP candidate.

-If NCP MLAs and Kotadiya actually voted for Ram Nath Kovind, then we can conclude that 8 Congress MLAs cast vote for BJP candidate.

-If NCP MLAs voted for Ram Nath Kovind but Kotaia voted for Meira Kumar or if NCP MLAs voted for Meira Kumar but Kotadia voted for Ram Nath Kovind then figures do chance by one or two. But overall scenario suggests that minimum 8 and maximum 11 Congress MLAs cast their vote in favor of BJP candidate.

In this scenario, if four more opposition MLAs can be convinced to vote against Congress candidate in upcoming Rajya Sabha election scheduled to take place on August 8, the BJP can field/support fourth candidate and secure his/her victory through first votes it has in surplus and secondary votes it has in big number. At present Congress is in slightly comfortable position (4 votes surplus) to win the third seat of Rajya Sabha for which nominations are to be filed before July 28. Do understand the Rajya Sabha poll scenario through this old article.

Votes(Gujarat):

Ram Nath Kovind: 19404
Meira Kumar: 7203