Pranab Mukherjee is set to record a convincing victory over P A Sangma in today's election with support of all Congress allies as well as some parties in BJP-led NDA.
The rallying of forces was evident at a lunch hosted by Congress president Sonia Gandhi where the mood was upbeat in anticipation of a rousing win the ruling alliance hopes will shake off some of the gloom due to poll reverses, corruption scams and a slowing economy......
Congress sources said Mukherjee can be expected to garner around 7,20,000 votes in an electoral college of a shade under 11 lakh votes. The party feels the tally may even rise on the back of some cross voting and the support of smaller parties.
The UPA hopes that Sangma will be pegged at under 3,00,000 votes while some 40,000 votes will be marked as absent. These would belong to parties like CPI, TRS and TDP that have decided to keep out of the presidential election.
Congress managers were, however, not leaving any base uncovered and met after Sonia's lunch to discuss poll booth management strategies for Parliament's central hall and all the assemblies were MLAs and MLCs will cast their votes.
Mukherjee's win is all but sealed and UPA plans to make this a statement of strength to drive home the opposition's inability to put up a credible challenge. Congress has criticized the Sangma campaign for attempting to challenge the former finance minister on alleged violation of office of profit rules with parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal calling it a waste of time.
The success of the presidential poll - that had looked deeply imperiled at one point in view of a brief alliance between Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee and Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav - will be amplified with victory in the vice-presidential poll on August 7. Incumbent vice-president Hamid Ansari is expected to get around 460-470 votes in an electoral college of 790.
Although Banerjee's virulent opposition to Mukherjee forced Sonia's hand as she was perhaps more inclined towards Ansari, the end result will be satisfactory for the Congress president. Sonia had to go through difficult negotiations as Congress lacked the solid support of a substantial Left bloc that had seen Pratibha Patil become president in 2007.
