By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal : The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, (BJP), in Madhya Pradesh received a jolt when it was revealed after counting in the presidential election that NDA nominee Bhairon Singh Shekhawat received seven votes less than its strength of 169 in the state legislative assembly.
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It is clear now that apart from the five suspended BJP MLAs two other dissidents of the party also did not vote for the BJP supported NDA nominee in the presidential polls held on July 19 to make the ruling party bosses scratch their heads in unison so as to what went wrong to their party with a difference.
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While the Madhya Pradesh Congress succeeded in receiving 13 votes more than its share from dissenting BJP MLAs in the polls. The efforts of the State Congress president Subhash Yadav and Leader of the Opposition Ms Jamuna Devi finally bore fruit.
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According to sources the calculations of the State Congress worked in the election. Three days before the election, Ms Pratibha Patil's relative Virendra Singh Sisodiya and State Congress spokesman Brijmohan Shrivastava had paraded seven non-Congress MLAs before Pratibha and they had assured her of their support.
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Some of the BJP MLAs for fear of exposure had said that they would get the ballot papers issued but would not vote for anybody. The results indicate that other than some small party MLAs, the BJP legislators also fulfilled their promises. The BJP rebel MLAs instead of voting for any candidate, wrote Om and Jai Shri Ram on the ballot papers. Congress leaders believe that all the 11 votes that were declared invalid belonged to the BJP legislators.
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From the State, Shekhawat got the votes of 162 MLAs while the UPA candidate Ms Pratibha Patil received 53 votes. Eleven votes were found to be invalid. The value of each vote from the State was 131.
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There are 230 seats in State Assembly of which two are vacant due to the death of two BJP legislators. Of these 226 MLAs exercised their franchise including five of seven MLAs of Samajwadi Party (SP), a constituent of the UNPA that had decided to abstain.
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There are 169 legislators from the BJP, 40 from the Congress, 2 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), three from Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), two from Rashtriya Samanata Dal (RSD), one each from NCP, CPM and JD (U), and two independents.
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There are five BJP MLAs who have been suspended on the charge of their involvement in anti-party activities or being close to Bharatiya Jan Shakti (BJS) president Ms Uma Bharti. It was suspected that these MLAs would vote against the ruling BJP, but one of them Sunil Nayak in a press conference had claimed that the suspended MLAs would vote for Shekhawat as he belonged to RSS. However, the results indicate that these MLAs did not vote to any candidate and made their votes invalid.