Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy has decided to organise a mock version of the Presidential elections for the convenience of Congress MLAs. The mock “polls” are also designed to prevent invalid votes, considering that there are almost 50 per cent new-comers in the House who have no experience of voting in Presidential elections.
The Chief Minister will host a dinner for the MLAs on July 19, the day preceding the Presidential poll. Mr Kiran Kumar Reddy is said to be preparing a brief on the procedure involved in voting. All the MPs and MLAs would be informed not to mark ‘second preference’ votes to NDA-sponsored candidate P.A. Sangma, except marking ‘1’ opposite the name of UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee. The Chief Minister will brief MLAs on the procedure, whereby the preference should not be given in words, only the number should be mentioned and it should be in the column opposite the one where the name of the candidate appears and should not be in the column containing the candidate’s name.
Even during the 2007 elections, the then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy organised a mock poll for the members, at the end of which it was found that five or so MLAs had either given a wrong preference or not marked the number. When it comes to actual polling, there is no mechanism to know which state the invalid votes belong to since all the votes would be pooled and counted. The election would be held on July 20 and is a straight fight between Mr Mukherjee and Mr Sangma.