Presidential polling underway in Nagaland

Interacting with media persons, Chief Minister Rio expressed confidence that with all the 60 members of the House standing together as UDA, NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu will get 100 per cent votes from Nagaland. Nagaland minister and BJP state president Temjen Imna Along said he was absolutely confident that all the legislators of the UDA will vote for Murmu.

Voting to elect the 15th President of the country is underway in Nagaland on Monday with legislators of the ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) exercising their franchise. In the 60-member assembly, 42 legislators of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), 12 BJP, 4 MLAs of Naga People’s Front (NPF), and two Independent MLAs had declared their support for NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu.

All these MLAs joined hands in September 2021 to form UDA for facilitating an early solution to the Naga political imbroglio. The oldest among the legislators, 88-year-old Kejong Chang, was helped by security personnel of the Assembly to walk to the polling booth in the legislative assembly complex here. The MLAs, including UDA chairman T R Zeliang, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, Deputy Chief Minister Y Patton, UDA co-chairman Kuzholuzo Nienu, Speaker Sharingain Longkumer stood in the queue, according to their assembly constituency numbers, to cast their votes. Interacting with media persons, Chief Minister Rio expressed confidence that with all the 60 members of the House standing together as UDA, “NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu will get 100 per cent votes from Nagaland”. Nagaland minister and BJP state president Temjen Imna Along said he was “absolutely confident” that all the legislators of the UDA will vote for Murmu. The vote value of each MLA in Nagaland is 9 and the value of all 60 votes of MLAs totals 540.

Nagaland has two MPs and the value of the vote of an MP this time is 700.