The numerical calculation of possible votes for 2012 Presidential candidate and the former Lok Sabha speaker, P A Sangma, seems to be at bleak to make him the 13th President of India.
P A Sangma
In a surprise move, earlier on Wednesday, Sangma quit the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) contending that party’s opposition to endorse the 64-year-old one of the founder member of NCP as presidential candidate is a, “denial of the aspirations of the tribals of the country.”
Following his resignation from the NCP, a divided NDA came out in support of the former Lok Sabha speaker, extending support to the candidature of the “tallest” tribal leader from North East India, BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley announced the party’s decision in a press conference on Thursday.
The latest twist in the run-up 2012 presidential poll came after Janata Party (JP) President Subramaniam Swamy met top Bhartiya Janata Party leaders, Susma Swaraj, Jaswant Singh and L K Advani on Wednesday evening.
However, the numbers that would lead him to the Rastrapati Bhavan seem to be at bleak even the main opposition party BJP (2,23,885 votes) and its allies in the National Democratic Alliances supported him.
Out of the 10,98,882 total votes, NDA have only 28% voting share (3,04,785) in the electoral college while the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) have 42% vote share (4,49,133) including Trinamool Congress (45925). The vote share of the two regional parties (BJD and AIADMK) which projected Sangma is very less.
In this scenario the crucial player in the presidential race is non- NDA, non- UPA, if they support the Sangma with their 24% (2,62,408) vote share, then the equation possibly would favor the former Lok Sabha Speaker.
Electoral College:
In the 10,98,882 vote value of 2012 Presidential poll, a total of 4,896 voters (including the MLAs and MPs) would exercise and seal the fate of the candidates through single transferable vote method.
To determine the vote value of an MLA in a state, a formula is use to calculate the number and 1971 census figures are used for the purpose. As per the provision of the Article 55 of Indian Constitution (election of President), to secure “uniformity in the scale of representation of the different States at the election of the President”, and it is calculated according to the 2 (a) of the article as; the population figure of a state is divided by thousand times of the assembly seats.
In the case of Manipur, the vote value of MLA would be- POPULATION/ (ASSEMBLY SEATS x1000) i.e 10,73000/(60×1000)=18.
So, value of vote of each MLA would be 18 and the total number of votes Manipur has in the presidential college is
60(no of MLA) x18 (value of vote) =1080.
While, to calculate the value of vote for each MP, the sum of the value of votes for all states is divided by the number of elected 776 MPs (543 Lok Sabha and 223 Rajya Sabha),
i.e 5,49,474/776=708.
Manipur has three MPs and the total vote is 2124.
