NEW DELHI: Pranab Mukherjee is India’s 13th President. After counting of votes in half the States was over, Mukherjee got a vote value of 5,58,194, crossing the required half-way mark of 5,25,140. 

The UPA nominee got the overwhelming support of Parliamentarians in the President’s election securing a vote value of 3,73,116.

Mukherjee’s rival P.A. Sangma, supported by some opposition parties including BJP, managed to get a vote value of only 1,45,848 in the counting of votes which is in progress at Parliament House, official sources said.

A total of 748 MPs voted in the election on July 19. Of the total votes, Mr. Mukherjee got 527 votes while Sangma got 206. 

Fifteen votes including that of SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were invalid. 
Each MP has a vote value of 708. There are a total of 776 voters in both the houses of Parliament. 

The electoral college consists of 4120 MLAs in the states. 

In Andhra Pradesh, which has a 294-member Assembly, Mukherjee got the support of 182 MLAs including that of Congress and YSR Congress while Sangma got the backing of three. Five were invalid. 

In terms of vote value, Mukherjee got 26936 while Sangma 444. A total of 190 MLAs voted because TDP and TRS abstained. 

Each MLA in Andhra Pradesh has a vote value of 148. 

Mukherjee kept up his lead even in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, where he got 54 of the 59 votes polled. The vote value corresponded to 432 for Mukherjee, while it was 16 for Sangma. 

In the 126-member Assam Assembly, Mukherjee got 110 votes while Sangma got 13. Two votes were invalid while one did not vote.

In terms of vote value, Mukherjee got 12,760 while Sangma got 1,508. 

In Bihar too, where the ruling JD(U) has declared support for Mukherjee, the UPA candidate got 146 out of the 240 votes polled in the 243 member Assembly. Sangma got 90, mostly from BJP, which shares power with JD(U).
 
Mukherjee’s vote value in in the state was 25,258 while for Sangma it was 15,570.
 
Three votes were invalid while one did not not vote. 

In BJP-ruled states of Chhattisgarh and Goa, Sangma got majority of votes. 
In the 90-member Chhattisgarh Assembly, 39 votes went to Mukherjee while Sangma got 50. One vote was invalid.
 
In terms of vote value, Mukherjee got 5,031 while Sangma got 6,450.

Mukherjee got 9 votes and Sangma 31 in 40-member Goa Assembly. In terms of vote value, Mukherjee got 180 while Sangma got 620.

Mukherjee got 59 votes and Sangma 123 votes in 182-member Gujarat Assembly where BJP has the majority. In terms of vote value, Mukherjee got 8,673 while Sangma got 18,081.

In 90-member Haryana Assembly, Mukherjee got 53 while Sangma received 29. Eight were invalid.

In terms of vote value, Mukherjee got 5936 and Sangma got 3248.

Mukherjee led Jammu and Kashmir and surprisingly in Jharkhand where BJP shares power with JMM. In BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh he trailed as expected.

In 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Mukherjee got 23 votes while Sangma won 44 votes. One vote was invalid.

Mukherjee’s vote value was 1173 while it was 2244 for Sangma. 

Jammu and Kashmir gave Mukherjee 68 votes while Sangma got 15 votes. Two votes were declared invalid.

Mukherjee’s vote value here stands at 4896 while Sangma got 1080. The Assembly has 87 MLAs.

In 81-member Jharkhand Assembly, Mukherjee got 60 votes while Sangma won 20. Mukherjee’s vote value is 10560 while Sangma’s stands at 3520.

There has been apparent cross-voting in Karnataka where BJP runs a government. UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee got the majority votes in the 224 member Assembly with 117 MLAs voting for him. Sangma could get only 103 votes while three votes were invalid. One MLA did not vote.

The value of votes polled by Mukherjee was 15,327 while it was 13, 493 for Sangma. 

In Kerala it was a clean sweep for Pranab Mukherjee. He won all the 124 votes polled while one was invalid. Sangma drew a blank. CPI and RSP members abstained from voting which has a 140 member Assembly. Vote value for Mukherjee in Kerala stood at 18848. — PTI

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party, Left parties and JD(S) on Sunday shot off a joint letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking the government not to open up retail trade to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) any further.

"We urge the government not to open up the retail trade to FDI any further. Political parties across the spectrum are opposed to this move. Many state governments have also stated their opposition," said the letter sent by these parties to the Prime Minister.

"In the absence of a wide-ranging consensus, we request you not to proceed with this decision," it said.

The letter was signed by Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Prakash Karat (CPI-M), S Sudhakar Reddy (CPI), Danish Ali (JD-S), Debabrata Biswas (Forward 
Block) and Abani Roy (RSP).

The government had allowed FDI in single brand retailing but had suspended the decision to allow such investment in multi-brand retailing due to opposition from several parties including UPA allies.

Among the signatories of this letter, SP and JD(S) support the government from outside.

The joint letter said that reports were appearing that the Government of India was going to revive the decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail trade.

The letter argued that the retail sector was the second largest employer in the country after agriculture, employing over four crore persons.

"Most of these are small unorganised or self-employed retailers. Entry of MNC supermarket and hypermarket chains would cause severe displacement of these small 
and unorganised shopkeepers and traders. The entry of the giant Wal-Mart supermarket chain would have a disastrous impact," the letter said.

The parties also said that the employment growth had slowed down according to the National Sample Survey data of 2009-10 and the entry of foreign supermarkets would further aggravate the employment situation. — PTI

NEW DELHI: Maruti Suzuki will continue to dispatch cars from its stockyard at the Manesar plant to dealers across the country although it has declared a lockout at the factory.

"The dispatch operations won't be affected and will continue from Manesar," Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Chief Operating officer (Production) M M Singh said.The stockyard at Manesar plant has inventory of about 26,000 units at present, he added.

The company had resumed dispatching cars from the stockyard to various dealers across the country on Friday. On Wednesday, violence broke out at the plant where a senior official was burnt alive and 100 others were injured.

The Manesar stockyard is also used for delivering cars produced at the company's Gurgaon plant to various dealers across the country.

On Saturday, the violence-hit company declared an indefinite lockout at its Manesar plant, the first such instance in its history, but firmly ruled out the possibility of shifting operations to Gujarat.

"There is now a lockout. To me, what is more important is safety of my colleagues than producing some cars to make some money," Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Chairman R C Bhargava had said at a press conference here.

Asked how long the lockout will continue he said, "Maruti is not closed...we will be very inefficient if we take six months. I don't think we are that bad...we will start at Manesar."

The company also said it was completely overtaken by the 'Tsunami-like' violence that it had not anticipated and announced they would not employ casual labour from March next year in production related operations, although they would be hired for "non-valued added" work like cleaning, security, canteen services, loading and unloading.

MSI also said hiring of the casual workers would be done directly by its HR division, instead of outsourcing it to a contractor as was done earlier. — PTI