 "Presidential Election")
Polling for the presidential election began in West Bengal assembly at 10 am on Monday morning with lawmakers of both ruling TMC and opposition BJP queuing up at the assembly premises to cast their votes.
Senior TMC leader and Minister Firhad Hakim said the aim is to ensure that opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha gets a handsome lead from the state.
The lead that Yashwant Sinha will get will be beyond all calculations. We are sure that even BJP MLAs will vote for our candidate, he said.
Major non-BJP parties of the country have named Sinha, a former union minister , as the joint nominee for the presidential election.
Droupadi Murmu is the presidential nominee of the BJP-led NDA.
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The TMC should first ensure that all its votes remain intact, BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul said.
Around 70 BJP lawmakers had camped in a city hotel since Sunday night and were given training on how to vote in the presidential polls.
BJP presently has 17 Lok Sabha MPs from West Bengal. Of them, Arjun Singh has switched over to TMC but is yet to resign as a parliamentarian.
Five of the 75 saffron party MLAs too have joined TMC without resigning as legislators. The assembly has 294 seats.
The ruling TMC has 216 MLAs and the support of the five BJP MLAs and one independent MLA.
It has 13 Rajya Sabha and 23 Lok Sabha MPs . Two of its MPs are not in touch with the party, but it has the support of BJP MP Arjun Singh.
The president is elected by an electoral college comprising members of the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha and the elected lawmakers of the states and union territories through the system of proportional representation. According to the EC the value of votes of each MP its 700, while that of the state legislators vary.
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