By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : United Progressive Alliance candidate in the presidential poll Pranab Mukherjee secured 124 out of the 139 votes polled Thursday in the Kerala Assembly.
The strength of the Kerala legislative assembly is 140. Of this, the Communist Party of India (13 legislators) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (two) did not vote, as the two parties have abstained from the presidential poll nationally.
All the rest, irrespective of being in the opposition or from treasury benches, voted in favour of Mukherjee.
CPI-Marxist legislator and former finance minister Thomas Issac took permission to vote in the Parliament House as he was in Delhi while returning from a trip to China.
With the assembly in session, the legislators had the whole of Thursday to cast their votes and a smiling former home minister and CPI-M politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was the first to cast his vote.
Chief whip P.C. George who was also the chief election agent of Mukherjee was the last to vote and by 2.20 p.m. the voting came to a close.
The polling agent for P.A. Sangma was state Bharatiya Janata Party president V. Muraleedharan and, on expected lines, Sangma did not receive any vote from Kerala.
The value of a vote of a Kerala legislator is 152.