Voting in the presidential polls didn't follow party lines with as many as five Congress legislators believed to have cross voted for the NDA's presidential nominee throwing up a result of 25 in favour of Ram Nath Kovind while opposition UPA's nominee got 11 MLAs voting in her favour while two votes were declared as invalid.
PANAJI
Of the 38 MLAs who were eligible to vote, with each MLAs vote having a weight of 20 votes Goa's voting when taken up in New Delhi at the time of counting threw up are result of 500 against 200.
Two votes were declared invalid with the ruling side claiming that one of their votes was declared invalid, while the opposition claimed that one of their votes was suspected to be invalid.
Faced with the development Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar said he would examine the matter in a meeting with his MLAs.
"We do not exactly what happened. But what I have heard that there was cross voting and that there were two invalid votes. We will examine it. I have called for a meeting tomorrow (Friday) at 10 am and then we might know. It should not happen. It is wrong, we will take precautions," Kavlekar said.
Chief Minister Parrikar on the other hand was only too happy with the results.
"I think one of our votes got invalidated for some technical error, which we knew at that time. But for presidential elections, since 1967, they have been according to your own mind. This time too it was, the same. Our party called for voting according to one's conscience and so did the Congress. So some must have really voted according to their conscience," Parrikar said.
"I congratulate those who voted for our candidate. Conscience vote is the norm of this election, so they thought he was the better candidate," Parrikar said.
