The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena abstained from voting in the Presidential poll on Thursday.
The Congress had made overtures to Mr. Thackeray on Tuesday, with Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan appealing to the 12 MNS legislators to back UPA presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee.
“The overtures should have come from the Congress high command in New Delhi and not from the party in Maharashtra,” MNS lawmaker Bala Nandgaonkar told The Hindu .
The Assembly has 288 members, of whom 189 from the three major parties — the Congress (with 82 MLAs), the Nationalist Congress Party (62) and Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (45) — have openly announced their support for Mr. Mukherjee.
In all, 274 legislators voted, with the 12 lawmakers from the MNS and two other legislators, K.P. Patil (NCP) and Suresh Jain (Shiv Sena), abstaining.
