At home, Pranab tracks poll

Among all the elections he has fought in his political career, the presidential poll is perhaps the easiest for Pranab Mukherjee. Saubhadra Chatterji reports.

Among all the elections he has fought in his political career, the presidential poll is perhaps the easiest for Pranab Mukherjee. The electoral arithmetic provides little hope or his competitor, Opposition-backed PA Sangma, as the UPA secured support even from a part of the Opposition camp.

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Still, Mukherjee, the old warhorse, did not take any chances. His small office room at his bungalow didn’t have the usual heap of files. Bunches of paper — electoral statistics with state-wise, party-wise vote share and updates on polling —replaced them. And Mukherjee was busy updating himself with the developments throughout the day.

Nagaland CM Nephu Rio called him in the morning to assure that Sangma — despite his northeast origin — will not get a single vote from Nagaland.

Around 2 pm, phone calls from Andhra Pradesh informed that out of the 189 MLAs who are expected to vote for the UPA, 186 have already voted.

Next came some calls from West Bengal: almost all votes have been cast. Parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal called, "661 MPs have cast their votes so far." Mukherjee looked pleased but quickly flipped over the papers to concentrate on other key states.

His only official engagement for the day was to go to Parliament at 11 am — and cast his vote along with PM Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

At the polling booth, Gandhi reportedly told him to cast his vote first. Mukherjee declined and said, "I will vote only after PM and you." Some enthusiast party members wanted to take Mukherjee to central hall. But the stickler of protocol said, "I shouldn’t go. Opposition may say, I am trying to influence voters."

Throughout the day, he was busy keeping tab on polling. But the ex-finance minister didn’t forget to keep an eye on another key issue: the Sensex. "Everyday I see it. I didn’t make an exception today. It’s a vital parameter of financial health," Mukherjee told HT.