Tue. Mar 19th, 2024
Ram Nath Kovind Narendra Modi

With the announcement of Ram Nath Kovind and Meira Kumar as the candidates for presidential election, a larger part of the suspense has gone away. From now, the discussion will be more about the strategies and tactics employed by the parties to get their candidate elected.

Though the opposition camp has over 17 parties with them, the elections seem to have gotten over before even starting. BJP and its supporting parties consist of 63.1% of the total electoral votes and it seems that Ram Nath Kovind will win the elections without any extra efforts needed from BJP and NDA.

We had earlier reported about BJP having support of almost 50% of the electoral votes. In the last few days, BJP has been successful in getting some more parties in its support. The parties which are not a part of NDA, and still supporting Ram Nath Kovind as presidential candidate include JD (U), AIADMK, TRS, BJD, YSRCP and INLD. AIADMK has a total of 5.39% electoral votes, whereas BJD, TRS and JD(U) have 2.99%, 2% and 1.91% votes. YSRCP and INLD have 1.53% and 0.38% of the votes with them.

BJP’s case in the elections has always been strong, however, there were a few glitches earlier with Shiv Sena hinting towards a possible change in camp, when it had turned the move of announcing Ram Nath Kovind as a political gimmick to woo Dalit voters. However, it later announced the support for Ram Nath Kovind, which has paved way for a one-sided elections in the coming month.

Rumours had also suggested that being from UP, Ram Nath Kovind might also get the support of SP and BSP. However, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati have both confirmed that they will support the secular camp in these elections.

By Prithviraj Singh Chauhan

Part time journalist, full-time observer. Editor-in-Chief at The Indian Wire. I cover updates related to business and startups.