EC appoints ARO, voting in Srinagar

Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, June 28: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has appointed Mohammad Ramzan, Secr-etary Legislative Assembly, as Assistant Returning Officer (ARO) for Jammu and Kashmir for the Presidential election, scheduled to be held on July 19.
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and its allies backed candidate Pranab Mukherjee and BJP backed PA Sangma were pitted against each other for the post of President.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Election Commission today appointed Mr Ramzan as ARO for Presidential election for Jammu and Kashmir. The Legislative Assembly Secretariat in Srinagar has been notified as the venue for polling for the President’s election.
The polling will be held on July 19.
Ten Members of Parliament (MPs)—six of Lok Sabha and four Rajya Sabha and 87 elected MLAs in the State comprised electoral college for election of the President having a total vote value of 13,344.
Sources said the Election Commission has notified that both MPs as well as MLAs can cast their votes in any State of the country. However, the MLAs had to seek permission of the Election Commission for casting their votes outside the State while the MPs can cast their votes in the Union capital (New Delhi) as well as their home State. For casting their vote in other States, they had to seek the EC’s permission.
Going by the political scenario in J&K, UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee was expected to get majority of votes from Jammu and Kashmir.
Major political parties including National Conference-Congress coalition partners and their allies, who accounted for nearly 50 MLAs and 10 MPs with a total vote value of 10,752 out of 13,344.
As all 10 MPs from the State belonged to National Conference and Congress, they accounted for 7080 votes, all of which would go to Mr Mukherjee. About 50 MLAs of the coalition accounted for 3672 votes. The vote value of MP all over the country is 708 while that of MLA varied from State to State. In J&K, the vote value of the MLA was 72.
Though the major opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with 21 MLAs and 1512 votes was yet to make a formal announcement, sources said the party would vote for Pranab Mukherjee. The PDP Legislature Party and Political Affairs Committee would take a final decision, party sources said.
Four MLAs of BJP with a vote value of 288 would vote for Mr Sangma, who also had the backing of Odisha Chief Minister Biju Patnaik, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha and some other allies of NDA. These are the only assured votes for Mr Sangma so far in Jammu and Kashmir as seven BJP rebels headed by MLA Jammu West Prof Chaman Lal Gupta and three NPP MLAs were yet to take a decision on their support.
Prof Gupta said both Mr Mukherjee and Mr Sangma were good candidates and their group would shortly decide on supporting any of the two. The NPP was also yet to announce its decision. The BJP rebels have vote value of 504 and NPP 216.
“Only elected MLAs in the Assembly (87) were eligible to cast votes for the post of President while two Nominated women MLAs in the Lower House can’t vote. Similarly, the MLCs (members of the Upper House) were also not entitled to vote for the election’’, sources said.
The State has 10 MPs, six of whom were directly elected by the people (members of Lok Sabha) while four others were elected by the MLAs (members of Rajya Sabha). All of them belonged to ruling National Conference-Congress coalition. The NC was a partner in the UPA Government.
Of six elected MPs, three belonged to National Conference including Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Dr Farooq Abdullah (Srinagar-Budgam seat), Sharief-ud-Din Shariq (Baramulla-Kupwara) and Dr Mehboob Beg (Anantnag-Pulwama). Two MPs from Jammu—Madan Lal Sharma (Jammu-Poonch) and Choudhary Lal Singh (Udhampur-Doda) belonged to Congress. Independent MLA from Ladakh Ghulam Hassan Commander was also affiliated to the NC.
Four Rajya Sabha members from Jammu and Kashmir were Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad and PCC (I) president Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz (both from Congress), Mohammad Shaffi Uri and GN Ratanpuri (both National Conference).
They added that all 7080 votes of 10 MPs in J&K would go to the UPA nominee, Pranab Mukherjee as all of them belonged to NC and Congress, which were coalition partners in the State. The NC was also part of the UPA Government at the Centre.

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