Meghalaya goes for Meira

SHILLONG: Ram Nath Kovind garnered only eight votes from Meghalaya while Meira Kumar got 41 and the invalid votes were 3.
Altogether 52 MLAs voted on Monday to elect the 14th President of India.
The MUA coalition had 43 MLAs- Congress with 30, NCP 2 and Independents 11, out of which 40 voted as Cabinet Minister Martin Danggo, Independents Justine Dkhar and Julius Dorphang were absent.
It is yet to be known whom the remaining two independents, Saleng Sangma and John Leslee Sangma, who are not part of MUA, voted for.
However, when the vote was counted, the tally stood at 41 for the UPA candidate.
This indicates that a legislator from outside the MUA coalition voted for the UPA presidential nominee.
On the other hand, with UDP’s seven MLAs (Brodling Nongsiej was absent) and NPP’s two, the vote count for the NDA nominee should have been 9. But the result shows that it was reduced to 8.
Four HSPDP legislators had abstained from voting.
The value of each vote for Meghalaya was 17 and out of 60, 52 MLAs voted making the total value 884.
 Kumar with 41 votes had a total value of 597 and Kovind with eight had a vote value of 136.
Besides, there were three invalid votes and the value was 51 while the value of valid 49 votes was 833.