Murmu gets surprise vote from Kerala; BJP terms it 'positive'

Thiruvananthapuram: The recently held presidential election and the historic victory of Droupadi Murmu are likely to create political ripples in Kerala as the NDA candidate received an unexpected vote from the southern state. When results of the much-awaited poll was announced in New Delhi on Thursday, Murmu was found to have received one vote from Kerala.

As there is no BJP legislator in the 140-member state Assembly, it was generally expected that the entire votes would be polled to opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha. The CPM-led ruling LDF and the Congress-headed UDF opposition front had announced their support to Sinha. The question being raised by political observers now is whether the vote polled to the NDA candidate was by a mistake or a deliberate one. The BJP state unit already came out expressing happiness over the unexpected single vote to the NDA candidate.

The single vote which the new President-elect Droupadi Murmu has received from among the 140 MLAs in the State Assembly has more value than the combined value of 139 votes received by her rival candidate, BJP State president K Surendran has said.

He said in his Facebook post that this could be regarded as a positive vote against the negative policies of both the LDF and the UDF.

Non-NDA candidate Yashwant Sinha received votes of 139 MLAs in the Assembly, resulting in getting a total value of 21,128 from the State.
No political party in Kerala had extended support to Murmu. Though JD(S) led by former Prime Minister Deve Gowda supported Murmu, its State unit having two MLAs- Electricity Minister K Krishnan Kutty and Mathew T Thomas -decided to support Sinha, keeping in line with the LDF stance.
But still, the victorious BJP candidate received the vote of one MLA from Kerala. This has come as a shot in the arm for the state BJP.