Presidential Elections 2017: BJP well placed, needs just one opposition party's support

NEW DELHI: A group of six political parties — AIADMK (Tamil Nadu), BJD (Odisha), TRS (Telangana), YSRCP (Andhra Pradesh), AAP (Delhi & Punjab) and INLD (Haryana) — cumulatively holds a 13% vote-share in the Presidential Electoral College and has the potential to make the contest interesting. These parties maintain equidistance from BJP as well as Congress in their domestic state-level political considerations.

Theoretically, the contest between the ruling establishment and the opposition could become evenly poised if the Congress-led opposition manages to secure the support of this flock of six parties. The opposition’s 35.47% votes combined with the 13.06% vote share of these six parties give them a total of 48.53% — just short of the NDA’s vote share of 48.64% in the presidential contest.

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However, the NDA needs the support of only one party — or two smaller ones from this unattached group — to cross the majority mark. With the BJP in the central government, the ruling establishment has better political heft to swing one or two parties from this group to secure a desirable outcome, provided it ensures that its allies, especially the belligerent Shiv Sena, don’t play truant.



There are numerous other small parties which are difficult to fit into these three broad groups — NDA, the Congress-spearheaded opposition and the unattached big parties — accounting for a little less than 3% of the vote share.

Their votes could depend on electoral management of rival candidates, but they are generally with the winning side.

While BJP held a meeting of NDA constituents during the just concluded budget session of Parliament to send a signal of unity ahead of the presidential elections, Congress president Sonia Gandhi also swung into action, meeting top opposition leaders to rally the broadest possible coalition for the presidential polls.



Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, too, has demonstrated cleverness and recently met BJD chief Naveen Patnaik.

Presidential Elections: Each Vote Counts
Presidential Electoral College comprises all Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs and the members of 31 legislative assemblies.

There are 784 MPs and 4,114 MLAs. The vote values of the college differ based on a formula under the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Election Rules, 1974. While the value of each MP’s vote is 708, the value of each MLA’s vote differ according to the size of the respective state assemblies and population.

Hence, each UP MLA commands highest vote value of 208; each Sikkim MLA has the lowest vote value of 7.