With the announcement of the names of their respective Presidential nominee, the ruling party and the opposition have initiated efforts to garner maximum support for their candidates but there is no hope of anyone of them breaking the country's first President Rajendra Prasad's record of grabbing the highest 99 percent votes. Dr Rajendra Prasad had got more than 99 per cent votes in presidential polls in 1957 and no candidate has been able to surpass this figure in fourteen polls held till now for the President's post. 'Missile Man' of the nation , APJ Abdul Kalam who jumped into the fray with the support of the ruling party and maximum opposition parties was able to gather 90 per cent votes only way back in 2002.
Till now, only once the President of the country was elected unopposed in 1977 when Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy was chosen without any opposition. After Dr Rajendra Prasad comes the second name of President Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan who received more than 98 per cent votes in 1962 Presidential polls. KR Narayanan is next in the line who managed 95 per cent votes when the polls for the post of President were held in 1997 and was the first Dalit leader to occupy the coveted post. This time around, the ruling alliance has fielded Ram Nath Kovind as their Presidential candidate whereas the opposition has Meira Kumar as their candidate for the Presidential elections due to be held next month. Both the leaders are Dalits.
Therefore, it is certain that the country will get a Dalit President this time around. If one ponders over the number of votes received by the candidates in all the polls held in the country for the post of President, then Dr Rajendra Prasad got 4,59,698 votes out of 4,64,370 polled in 1957 elections.Two candidates contested against him. One of them got 2,672 votes while another grabbed 2,000 votes only in his favour. Dr Rajendra Prasad holds the distinction of being the President of the country twice but he got only 84 per cent votes only in the first Presidential elections he contested in 1952. In 1952, five candidates were in the fray and only 6,05,386 votes were cast. Dr Rajendra Prasad managed 5,07,400 votes. His nearest rival KT Shah had to contend with 92,827 votes only. (UNI)
