The Presidential election is underway in Tripura. Elected members of the House are casting their votes. Value of each MLA’s vote of Tripura is 26.
Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha, Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma, ex- Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb ICA Minister Sushanta Chowdhury, Minsters – NC debbarma (IPFT) and Santana Chakma, Leader of the Opposition Manik Sarkar and others cast their votes.
Speaker of Tripura Assembly Ratan Chakraborty and Chief Whip of State Assembly Kalyani Roy and others also exercised their democratic rights.
Apart from Manik Sarkar, Opposition leaders including former minister Bhanu Lal Saha and others also cast their votes.
Lone Congress MLA, Sudip Roy Barman also took part in the voting process and cast his vote.
The ruling party members exuded confidence that NDA Presidential Candidate Draupadi Murmu will emerge victorious against Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition in Tripura Assembly commented it is the first voting where all the voters would be able to cast votes.
According to the Opposition party MLAs, the Presidential election is crucial in terms of sustainability of democracy in India.
In the 60-member Tripura Assembly, all the MLAs are eligible to exercise their franchise.
An IANS report mentioned : The President is elected by members of the Electoral College consisting of elected Members of Parliament and that of all the state Assemblies, including National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry. The nominated Members of Parliament, state Assemblies and Members of Legislative Council are not eligible to vote.
A total of 776 Members of Parliament and 4,033 MLAs will vote in the Presidential elections.
The total value of votes is 10,86,431, of which votes of MLAs are 5,43,231 and MPs are 5,43,200.