Gandhinagar: The election for the President of India began on Monday morning nationwide. The contest is between the ruling BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate and former Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu and the Opposition’s choice, senior politician and former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha.

The voting which began at 10 am is going to continue till 5 pm on the fourth floor of the Gujarat Assembly. In total 177 MLAs of Gujarat are going to participate in the voting, of whom 110 are from the ruling BJP. The Speaker who is also BJP MLA, can’t vote in this election. Congress has 63, Bharatiya Tribal Party(BTP) has two father son MLAs and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Independent have one each vote. While Dwarka BJP MLA’s validity is in question as the case is going on in the Supreme Court, three seats – Unjha, Bhiloda and Khedbrahma are vacant.

It is interesting to see whether any Congress MLA commits cross-voting. It should be noted that in the Presidential election, voting is secret and no whip is issued to voters by any party. Therefore it will never be in public that which particular MLAs did cross-voting. It is also interesting to see whether BTP father-son MLAs cast their votes in favor of BJP led NDA’s tribal candidate or for opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha. Sharad Pawar led NCP’s single MLA Kandhal Jadeja has history of casting vote in favor of BJP during Rajya Sabha elections.

Leader of Opposition in Gujarat Assembly and senior Congress MLA from tribal belt of State, Sukhram Rathwa today said that by fielding a tribal woman as Presidential candidate seems a masterstroke (of BJP led NDA) pic.twitter.com/KAon0ShF3L

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) July 18, 2022

There are about 4,809 eligible voters in the electoral college nationally. With the Opposition parties such as the BJD, TDP, YSRCP, JD(S), JMM, BSP, Shiromani Akali Dal and the JMM pledging support to Ms. Murmu along with the AIADMK, both the factions of the Shiv Sena, JD(U) and the BJP, she is comfortably placed to win more than two-third votes.

The elected members of both the Houses of Parliament and the legislative Assemblies of States, the National Capital Territory of Delhi and the Union Territory of Puducherry make the electoral college for the presidential election. The value of total votes is 10,86,431. Given its strength in Parliament and Assemblies and considering the support Ms. Murmu received from various unexpected quarters, the ruling NDA’s candidate is likely to win more than 6.67 lakh votes. Nominated MPs and MLAs and members of legislative councils are not entitled to vote in the presidential election.

Chief Minister at polling booth pic.twitter.com/nNO9edxItx

— DeshGujarat (@DeshGujarat) July 18, 2022

In 2017, President Ram Nath Kovind received votes with value of more than seven lakh against his opponent Congress’s Meira Kumar. Considering the support for Ms. Murmu, it is quite possible that she may also receive similar value of votes in this election.

MPs get a green colour ballot paper and MLAs get a pink ballot paper in the election. “For marking the vote, the Commission supplies particular pens. The pen is given to the electors in the polling station by the designated official when the ballot paper is handed over. Electors have to mark the ballot only with this particular pen and not with any other pen. Voting by using any other pen leads to invalidation of the vote at the time of counting,” the Election Commission said.

The 84 th amendment of the Constitution provides that the population of the States for the purposes of calculation of value of votes for the presidential election shall be based on 1971 census. “The total value of votes of all members of each State Assembly is worked out by multiplying the number of elective seats in the Assembly by the number of votes for each member, e.g., 175×159 = 27,825 for Andhra Pradesh. The total value of votes of all the States added together is divided by the total number of elected members of Parliament (Lok Sabha 543 + Rajya Sabha 233) to get the value of votes of each Member of Parliament,” a background note of the Commission added.

The value of vote of each Member of Parliament is 700. Each MLA of Uttar Pradesh has the highest value of vote, which is 208 and Sikkim MLA has the lowest value of vote of 7.