ChinmayC Blog

The Republic of India has got a new President elected today, July 22, 2012. Pranab Mukherjee, the former Finance Minister and the chief trouble shooter for the coalition government of India , has been declared elected for the top office. The poll for the post took place on 19 th July and counting of votes was taken up from today . As expected, Pranab Mukherjee swept the elections winning nearly 70 percent of total votes cast. He got astounding support from the members of the Indian Parliament irrespective of party lines. The votes in the Indian states split up depending on which political party the particular state government belonged to, but there were surprises too in some of them in favor of Pranab. The fact that Pranab Mukherjee was a candidate no political party could possibly object got vindicated in the results. It had been a straight contest between the UPA-2 (United Progressive Alliance—the ruling coalition) nominated Pranab Mukherjee and the largely self-styled candidate P...

After ushering in the most bizarre twist to the Indian Presidential Elections-2012 and after maintaining the most unmitigated suspense over her party's support Mamata Bannerji, finally, decided to vote for Pranab Mukherjee--the Presidential candidate nominated by the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA-2). The unstoppable Chief Minister of West Bengal had earlier said that her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), would declare its decision 72 hours before the polling date on July 19, 2012. And today, with less than 48 hours to go, she informed the press in Kolkata that her party had no other option but to support Pranab and that she was doing it to uphold democratic traditions as abstaining from voting would've amounted to betrayal of the people. If fact, after her Kalam drama Mamata became helpless as her partner-of-the-day Mulayam Singh Yadav dumped her the moment Pranab Mukherjee’s name was officially announced. But the firebrand leader maintained even today that Pranab...

Campaigning for the 14 th Presidential Elections-2012 started in full swing from June 30, 2012 after the two contesting candidates filed their nominations on 28 th June. While the citizens of India hoped for a dignified contest things threatened to take an acrimonious turn due to allegations and elements of desperation. PA Sangma, the self-styled candidate initially proposed by a regional party of the eastern state of Odisha and ultimately supported by the national opposition party, was seemingly desperate to reach the Raisina Hill (the Presidential palace or Rashtrapati Bhavan is located in this area) playing on his tribal card and on the first ever tribal president of the country phenomenon stoutly. On July 2 his desperation became vocal as he chose to attack Pranab Mukherjee, the candidate supported by the ruling alliance and most other major political parties. . Sangma demanded Mukherjee’s candidature be cancelled as Mukherjee was ineligible for the contest by allegedly holding...