Presidential polls: Droupadi Murmu has easy edge over Yashwant Sinha

India’s 15th president is set to be elected on Monday, and Droupadi Murmu, backed by the ruling National Democratic Alliance, seems to be headed for a comfortable win with numbers in her favour.

Challenging her is the opposition’s pick – Yashwant Sinha – who had quit the BJP in 2018. Murmu, if elected, would be India’s first tribal woman president. Meanwhile, the presidential polls had galvanised the opposition over the last one month as they finally picked former union minister Sinha. A day before the presidential polls, Sinha urged for support in an appeal to parliamentarians and legislators.

Here are ten points on presidential elections in India:

1. Droupadi Murmu, who has served as the Jharkhand governor earlier, has got support from unlikely quarters over the past one month since her candidature was announced. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, despite the fall of Maharashtra government and differences with the BJP, has said it would back Murmu.

2. Soon after her candidature was announced, the BJD (which has 31,686 of 1086431 votes in electoral college), the YSRCP (with 45,550 votes) and the AIADMK (14,940) had announced their support for her, making it easy for Murmu to edge past Sinha.

3. With the NDA having 49 per cent or 5,32,351 of the 1086431 votes, support from a few quarters too would have been enough for Murmu.

4. Last week, Congress ally Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) became the latest non-NDA ally to announce it would vote for Murmu in the 2022 presidential elections.

5. Meanwhile, Yashwant Sinha made a fervent appeal to lawmakers a day before the presidential elections. “This election is your last chance to introduce much-needed course correction in the BJP,” he told lawmakers from the BJP.

6. “My rival, again make no mistake, will be under the control of those whose aim is to convert democratic India into an imitator of Communist China – ‘One nation, one party, one supreme leader’,” he said, calling for stopping this in his appeal,” Sinha further alleged in an attack on his rival.

7. Sinha, who was with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congrees, was picked as opposition’s candidate after Farooq Abdullah, Sharad Pawar and Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Gopakrishna Gandhi, refused to run for the post.

8. Both the candidates had a show of strength when they filed their nominations. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top leaders were with Murmu at the time.

9. The presidential elections come on a day when the monsoon session of parliament is headed for a stormy start.

10. President Ram Nath Kovind’s tenure comes to an end on July 24. The results will be announced on July 21. The 15th president of India will take oath on July 25.