Droupadi Murmu vs Yashwant Sinha for President: How will the votes be counted?

Droupadi Murmu or Yashwant Sinha. The day when India gets her 15th President is upon us as the votes cast on 18 July will be counted.

The Election Commission (EC) will begin the counting of votes registered by MPs and MLAs at 11 am at Parliament House.

The tenure of President Ram Nath Kovind ends on 24 July and the next day the new President will take the oath of office.

Who cast their votes and how?

On Monday, a total of 4,809 electors, comprising 776 MPs and 4,033 elected MLAs, were asked to vote in the election between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance's candidate Droupadi Murmu and joint Opposition’s pick of Yashwant Sinha.

As per the EC data, an overall turnout of more than 99 per cent was recorded. Out of the electoral college of 4,809 (776 MPs and 4033 MLAs), 4,796 electors featured.

The Secretary-general of the Rajya Sabha PC Mody, who is the Chief Returning Officer for the poll, had said in a press conference after the votes were cast, “Voter turnout of 99.18 per cent registered.”

This number was later revised to 98.91 per cent.

The election was concluded successfully in a free, fair and transparent manner at the Parliament House and at 30 centres within State Legislative Assemblies across the country including in Delhi and Puducherry, the poll panel has said in a statement.

The Presidential elections saw all the who’s who of the political world casting their votes — from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who turned up at Parliament on a wheelchair to exercise his duty. Even COVID-19 couldn’t stop Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to being a part of the historical exercise and she cast her vote covered in a PPE kit.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Power Minister RK Singh cast their votes for the Presidential polls in PPE kits as they are suffering from COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/lwqHIuHV2O

— ANI (@ANI) July 18, 2022

Counting of votes

After the exercise on 18 July, which ended at 5 pm, all the ballot boxes from various state Assemblies were flown back to Delhi.

After the polling for #PresidentialElections2022 concluded peacefully today, Mr. Ballot Box boarded the flight to Delhi accompanied by respective AROs! Pics from Assam, Gujarat and Karnataka along with the sealed Ballot Box. Counting of votes is scheduled on July 21,2022. pic.twitter.com/iqHIg8rCPJ

— Election Commission of India #SVEEP (@ECISVEEP) July 18, 2022

All the ballot boxes have been stored in room number 63, the strongroom of Parliament, and has been guarded 24/7.

The counting will begin at 11 am and is likely to be over by 4 pm when the results will be announced.

As per the procedure, first the returning officers will sort and check the votes that were cast.

MPs have written down their order of preferences for the candidates on ballot papers using green pens, while MLAs have used pink. These pens are specially designed for the polls and have been manufactured by Mysuru-based firm Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited — the same company that also provides the ink for all elections conducted in India.

The counting officials will first sort the ballot papers of the Legislative Assembly members and then of the MPs. They will then be placed in two different trays, one for Murmu and the other for Sinha.

The counting will take place only after the sorting is completed.

A PTI report states that Mody 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.

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.

The briefing will take place from a media corner that has been set up outside Room Number 73 of Parliament House.

The value of each MP’s vote is 700, totalling 543,200 for total 776 members of Parliament. The value of each legislator's vote depends on their state's population; the total value of votes of 4,033 MLAs is 543,231.

Therefore, as many as 4,809 electors vote during Presidential elections, with the overall value of their votes being 1,086,431.

The nominee who polls more votes than the required quota — 50 per cent of total valid votes polled +1, is declared winner.

The results will be announced in the evening.

Murmu vs Sinha

In the race to Rashtrapati Bhavan, it appears that the NDA candidate, Droupadi Murmu, has an edge.

She is likely to get the votes of all the BJP MPs and MLAs. Several regional parties, including some not allied with the BJP, have also announced support for the tribal leader.

Murmu, who hails from Odisha, has been backed by the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) with the chief minister hailing her as the "daughter of the state". Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal(United), Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP, AIADMK, and Shiromani Akali Dal had also announced their support for Murmu.

Opposition parties such as the Shiv Sena and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha also had extended their support to Murmu.

It has been reported that several legislators in states have cross-voted in favour of NDA nominee Murmu by not following their party line in the Presidential election.

If elected, the BJP leader will become the first tribal woman to become the President of the country.

With inputs from agencies

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