UPA cannot do without Left help

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The pesidential polls are likely to gain momentum as the Election Commission is expected to notify the polls early this week.

Going by the present political equations, a UPA nominee can win hands down. In an electoral college of 10,98,882, the UPA has 5.70 lakh votes as against NDA's 3,54,689.

The nascent Third Front, floated recently at Hyderabad, has 1,06,281 votes. The rest of the votes belong to the parties like National Conference, which are neither with the UPA nor with the NDA on the vote for the President.

The difference is still close and since the vote is through secret ballot, the UPA cannot sit easy and much will depend on its choice of candidate and whether the candidate gets complete support of the alliance partners, especially the Left parties.

The Left parties have a combined vote strength of 1,32,817, and the UPA simply cannot do without their support.

There is more bad news for the UPA, as it is a three-cornered election. In case, no candidate is able to garner the minimum number of votes, a second round of preference votes will follow.

The election of the President is a unique exercise in which each member of the electoral college, comprising all elected members of the Parliament and the legislative assemblies of the states, mark their preferential choices on their votes.

For this reason the more the candidates, the tougher the contest. Under this system, the candidate getting the highest number of votes is not automatically elected unless he garners more than half plus one of the total votes cast.

In a multiple contest, if the UPA's nominee fails to garner the mandatory half plus one votes, the simple game of numbers turns complicated.

A second round of counting is done in which second preferences of the electors are counted and added to the votes secured by candidates in first round. This continues till one candidate reaches the half plus one mark.

This situation, sources say, could throw a surprise if the UPA camp does not forge a consensus. However, Congress leaders say that the final name will emerge only after Sonia Gandhi returns from her European tour.

She is likely to hold talks with the Left parties and DMK supremo K Karunanidhi.

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...Patil leads the race

It was a busy weekend for those involved in the discussions to finalise the UPA's presidential nominee, even as the Election Commission indicated that it would notify the presidential polls this week.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the man given the charge by Congress President Sonia Gandhi to forge a consensus on a candidate, preferably Home Minister Shivraj Patil, went from Delhi to Kolkata and back and met with NCP chief Sharad Pawar and West Bengal Chief Minister Budhhadev Bhattacharya.

Pawar, who is said to be not so keen on Patil had to bow down to Maharashtrian pride and called up the home minister to assure him that his party would be supporting Patil's candidature for the post.

BSP chief Mayawati who has remained a cipher with regard to the polls, arrived in Delhi and met with Sharad Pawar. Sources confirm that she will be meeting top Congress leaders on Monday to put her seal on a name.

It now seems that Patil might just get into Rahstrapati Bhawan unless Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat gets more support than just the NDA constituents.

As to that, the jury is still out, since the game plan for Shekhawat was to secure the support of not just some non-BJP, non-Congress parties who are now talking of the third front but also that of a few ex-prime ministers. He wants to ask for a conscience vote, for a "people's president."