RAK KUMAR
Ranchi, July 18: The ongoing voting in the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly for the Presidential election has ended.
80 of the 81 MLAs exercised their franchise. The first vote was cast by BJP MLA Anant Ojha and the last vote was cast by Independent MLA Saryu Roy. The one who did not turn up is Sindri MLA Indrajit Mahto as he is ill.
The voting started as BJP MLAs arrived at 10 am to vote by bus. Sahibganj MLA Ojha cast the first vote and Naveen Jaiswal and Bhanu Pratap Shahi followed him. Gradually, the other 25 legislators of the BJP voted.
Congress MLAs came to vote in the afternoon followed by the MLAs of JMM reached the assembly and voted.
There are no hints of any cross-voting. JMM legislators voted in accordance with the direction of party chief Shibu Soren to vote for NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu while Congress legislators cutting across tribal and non-tribal affiliation followed party diktat and voted for Opposition’s candidate Yashwant Sinha.
