Imphal, July 17 2017: As polling for election of the country’s 14th President was held today across the country, MLAs of the State too voted in the State Assembly’s committee room amidst tight security arrangement today .
Notably, the Presidential election is a straight fight between BJP-led NDA and UPA led by Congress party.
While Ram Nath Kovind is the NDA candidate, UPA is fielding Meira Kumar .
Even though the voting hours were from 10 am to 5 pm, voting in the State concluded at around 1.30 pm .
All the 60 MLAs of the State including Ngamthang Haokip who is currently undergoing treatment in a hospital voted for a new President .
Incidentally, Ngamthang Haokip is one of the many MLAs elected on Congress tickets to have joined the BJP .
Voting was done through secret ballot paper of which serial number one was occupied by Meira Kumar while Ram Nath Kovind occupied serial number two .
The value of vote entitled to each MLA of the State is 18.MPs elected from the State too voted in the Parliament House .
Ministry of Environment and Forest Joint Secretary Manoj Kumar who is the State’s election observer and Returning Officer and Assembly Secretary M Ramani made all efforts to hold the election without any untoward incident .
MLAs Dr S Ranjan and Alfred Kanngam Arthur sat in the polling booth as election agents of NDA and UPA respectively .
Notably, tenure of incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee expires on July 24 .
The sealed ballot box would be kept in the Assembly’s strong room tonight before it is taken to Delhi tomorrow.
The votes would be counted on July 20 .
The BJP-led alliance has 40 MLAs including 21 BJP MLAs, four NPF MLAs, four NPP MLAs, one LJP MLA, one Trinamool Congress MLA, one independent MLA and eight MLAs elected on Congress tickets who joined BJP later .
On the other hand, Congress is now left with just 20 MLAs even though 28 MLAs were elected on its ticket.
Source: The Sangai Express
