By IANS
Thiruvananthapuram : United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-Left presidential candidate Pratibha Patil bagged 132 votes in Left-ruled Kerala even as five votes were found invalid during the counting for the presidential poll Saturday.
Kerala has 140 legislators with 98 members in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and 42 belonging to the opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).
Three legislators did not vote while two were incapacitated due to illness, including K.M. Mani of UDF, who is recuperating from a surgery in the US.
M.J. Jacob of the LDF was barred from voting as there is a petition challenging his election.
The counting was held in the parliament building in New Delhi.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Vijayakumar here said that he was not at all surprised that five votes went invalid because the voting method was too complicated.
"I had clearly told this to many during the voting that chances are there could be a few invalid votes. What needs to be done is one has to see the intention of the voter and I am told that if we write 1 slightly slanted it could be treated as invalid," said Vijayakumar.
But treasury bench legislator P.C. George told IANS that he felt one party in the opposition was not too keen on the candidature of Patil.
"I don't think that these five votes turned invalid unknowingly," said George.
State Assembly Secretary N.K. Jayakumar was surprised that five votes had gone invalid.
"I had given clear written instructions to all the legislators on the manner in which one has to vote," said Jayakumar.