India is all set to get its 15th President as the counting of votes for the Presidential election will start at 11 am on Thursday at the Parliament House in Delhi. The tenure of incumbent President Ram Nath Kovind tenure is ending on July 24 and his successor will take oath on July 25. Those who contested for the top constitutional post in the country are – ruling BJP-led NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu and Opposition’s Yashwant Sinha.
So far, Murmu looks set for an easy victory as several non-NDA parties have pledged to support her. If elected, she will the first tribal person to hold the post. Moreover, there are also reports of cross-voting in favor of her in a number of states.
On the other hand, Sinha, a former bureaucrat who remained a minister in BJP regimes before parting ways some years ago, has said that the battle is not between individuals but between ideologies.
Voting for the Presidential polls was held on July 18 at 31 locations including the Parliament House and 30 centers within state legislative assemblies. The result is likely to be declared by Thursday evening.
Here are some of the key points:
- Ballot boxes, know as ‘Mr Ballot Box’, reached the Parliament House from all states on Tuesday evening. Poll officials will count the votes on Thursday in room number 63, the strong room of Parliament where the boxes are kept under tight security.
- Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Mody, who is the Chief Returning Officer for the election, will oversee the counting. He will first brief on the poll trends after all votes of MPs have been counted, and then again after votes of 10 states in alphabetical order have been counted. Sources told news agency PTI that he will brief once more on the poll trends after votes of 20 states have been counted, and then finally declare the result after the total counting.
- As per the Election Commission, each ballot box was issued an e-ticket under the name ‘Mr Ballot Box’.
- No whip was issued to members in the Presidential election. Lawmakers of both, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, except nominated MPs, and all MLAs in the legislative assembly in all states act as electors in the Presidential poll.
- A total of 4,809 electors, comprising 776 MPs and 4,033 elected MLAs, were entitled to vote in the election, but nominated MPs and MLAs, and Members of the Legislative Council were not. Over 99 per cent of the total electors had cast their ballot in the poll, according to the EC.
- Eight MPs, including BJP’s Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre, were among those who didn’t cast their votes due to medical reasons.
- Kovind had become the President after polling 7,02,044 votes out of a total of 10,69,358 votes, while his rival Meira Kumar polled only 3,67,314 votes.
(with inputs from PTI)
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