All you need to know about 15th Presidential election

Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent of votes are expected to be cast in her favour.

The polling will take place in Parliament House and state legislative assemblies between 10 am and 5 pm for which ballot boxes have already reached their destinations.

The counting of votes will be held on July 21 in Delhi after bringing the ballots from states where MLAs will be voting. The term of the current president is ending on July 24 and a new president will be sworn in on July 25.

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The electoral college consists of 776 elected MPs and 4,033 MLAs, whose total vote value is pegged at 10,86,431.

The value of the vote of a member of Parliament has gone down to 700 from 708 in this presidential poll due to the absence of a legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir.

The value of the vote of an MLA varies in different states. In Uttar Pradesh, the value of the vote of each MLA stands at 208, followed by 176 in Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. In Maharashtra, it is 175. In Sikkim, the value of vote per MLA is seven, while it is nine in Nagaland and eight in Mizoram.

Who are the candidates?

NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu

NDA’s Presidential candidate, Droupadi Murmu, is the former Governor of Jharkhand and the first tribal woman to hold that position. She was also the first to have completed a full term as the governor of Jharkhand.

Also Read | Droupadi Murmu: New icon of subaltern Hindutva

Murmu, whose name did the rounds as a presidential candidate in 2017 as well, belongs to Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district and began her life as a teacher. Murmu’s political journey began in 1997 when she was elected councillor of Rairangpur district in Odisha.

She had also served as the vice-president of BJP’s Scheduled Tribes Morcha in Odisha between 2006 and 2009 and was elected party president in the Mayurbhanj district several times.

Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha

Before naming Sinha, a former Union minister and a BJP leader, the opposition camp had approached Gopalkrishna Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and a former governor of West Bengal, NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah to contest the poll.

After their refusal to be part of the electoral battle, Sinha, then the Trinamool Congress vice president, was named as the Opposition's candidate.

Also Read | Tribal ‘First Citizen’: A dystopia dressed in policy bling

How does the voting take place?

The election of the President is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote.

In accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote, every elector can mark as many preferences, as there are candidates contesting the election.

These preferences for the candidates are to be marked by the elector, by placing the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on, against the names of the candidates, in the order of preference, in the space provided in column 2 of the ballot paper.

This is the reason why electronic voting machines are not used in this as well as vice presidential, Rajya Sabha and legislative council polls. The EVMs are based on a technology where they work as aggregators of votes in direct elections such as the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

According to Election Commission's directions, while MPs will get a green-coloured ballot paper, the MLAs will get a pink ballot paper to cast vote. Separate colours help the returning officer ascertain the value of the vote of each MLA and MP.

Seeking to maintain the secrecy of voting, the EC has issued a specially designed pen with violet ink to enable voters to mark their ballot papers in the presidential poll.

(With agency inputs.)