Murmu Vs Sinha: How the counting of votes is done for Presidential elections

New Delhi: The counting of votes for the Presidential elections is underway and the winner will be announced today. As India awaits the election of its 15th President, the excitement in BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is palpable. The scales are already tilted in favour of Droupadi Murmu and she is slated to comfortably win the Presidential elections. If elected, she will become the second woman and the first tribal President of India.

Like the lawmakers and legislators, the President of India is also elected by the people but not by direct voting of the electorate. The representatives chosen by the countrymen on state & national levels cast their vote to elect the President.

Like any other election, the winner is the one who receives more votes. Quota system also works in the Presidential election counting, which is calculated by dividing the number of valid votes by two and then adding one. If a candidate receives more votes than the required threshold, the candidate will be announced as the victor.

How MPs & MLAs cast their vote

While casting their ballot, the MPs & MLAs write their order of preference for each candidate. The MPs use a green pen while pink pen is allotted to the legislators.

Ballot papers of MPs & MLAs are first sorted separately to make the counting process easier. After this, the ballot papers are counting to see which candidate got how many votes.

The value of vote of each MPs is 700 while the value of MLA’s vote depends on the population of state that he/she represents. This way, the value of MLA’s vote from Uttar Pradesh will certainly be bigger than an MLA’s vote from Haryana.

The candidate who gets more than 50% of total valid votes will emerge as the winner. As the NDA enjoys considerable majority in both the Houses, its candidate Droupadi Murmu is slated to record an easy victory.

The winning candidate will be declared next President-elect and will take oath on July 25, a day after President Ram Nath Kovind retires from the highest constitutional office.