The role of the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal will be crucial in the election of the next President in 2017, according to the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a premier public opinion research body specialising in poll studies.
“Without the support of other parties, neither the NDA nor UPA currently has the required number of votes to get their candidate elected as the President. The UPA has less than 4 lakh votes and NDA has nearly 4.5 lakh votes, while they require around 5.5 lakh votes to elect a President.
Hence, the support of any two of the above three Chief Ministers is needed to clinch the matter”, CMS Chairman, Mr. N. Bhaskara Rao, told The Hindu.
The situation might change in favour of NDA if the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies manage to secure 200 and above seats in the elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly to be held prior to the Presidential polls.
In such a case, NDA can get a simple majority in the elections.
The term of President Pranabh Mukherjee, who assumed office in 2012, ends in 2017. As per the Constitution, the President is chosen by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament, the elected members of the State Assemblies and Union Territories. The total votes of the electoral college, as per CMS, is around 10.8 lakh votes.
Mr. Rao said following the recent elections to the Rajya Sabha and the three States of Tamil Nadu West Bengal and Assam, the CMS had conducted a survey in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata which revealed that people were in favour of having a consensus candidate, who has a basic understanding of Indian philosophy, as the President.
“The Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take the initiative in this regard as such a consensus approach is in tune with his concept of Sab Ke sath”, Mr. N. Bhaskara Rao said.
Talking about the national scenario and good governance, Mr. Rao said the political trend today was in favour of regional parties.
This was because the national parties have “utterly failed” in reflecting the needs of the local people.
“Yet, we hang on to a centralised model of governance. Even when signals are otherwise from electoral results, as if the verdict is making no difference, we are not learning”, he said.
According to him, the need of the hour is strong States. Centralisation has added to the problem.
