Presidential Election Live Updates (India): Voting in the Presidential Election began on Monday at 10 am in Parliament House and State Assemblies. With Ram Nath Kovind’s election ending on July 24, around 4,800 MPs and MLAs will cast their vote to elect the 15th President of India. Counting votes will take place on July 21, while the next president will take oath on July 25.
BJD, YSRCP, BSP, AIADMK, TDP, JD(S), Shiromani Akali Dal, Shiv Sena and now JMM, backed by National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Draupadi Murmu, have a clear lead over opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha. He is expected to get 60 per cent votes in his favour. She will become the first woman from the tribal community to hold the country’s top constitutional post if elected.
Before naming Sinha, a former Union minister during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the opposition camp approached former Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah to take part in the presidential battle. In the 2017 election, Ram Nath Kovind became the President by defeating joint opposition candidate Meira Kumar. Kovind got 7,02,000 votes out of 10,69,358, compared to Kumar’s 3,67,000.
