As many as 350 electors, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh, cast their vote in the first 1.5 hours of the presidential poll, sources said Monday.
Voting for the presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint opposition pick Yashwant Sinha began on Monday morning with Prime Minister Modi being the first to cast his vote. The voting process would conclude at 5 pm.
The electoral college which elects the president through the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote comprises MPs and members of the state legislative assemblies.
Nominated MPs, MLAs and members of legislative councils are not entitled to vote in this election.
The MPs and MLAs will get ballot papers of different colours when they vote to elect the next President of India. While MPs will get green papers, the MLAs will get ballot papers printed in pink.
Major political parties have already announced their support for the candidates.
Here's a brief account of what's going on where.
Delhi
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs Shiv Charan Goel and Bhavna Gaur, and BJP’s Mohan Singh Bisht were early voters.
NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint Opposition pick Yashwant Sinha in the much-awaited poll to elect the next President of India.
Polling began amid tight security arrangements at 10 am and it will conclude at 5 pm.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs are entitled to vote.
The Delhi Assembly has 70 seats, with the ruling AAP having 62 MLAs and the rest belonging to the BJP.
AAP has decided to support opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had said after a political advisory committee (PAC) meeting of the party on Saturday.
As many as 4,809 electors comprising MPs and MLAs will vote to elect incumbent Ram Nath Kovind's successor, the Election Commission of India had said in June.
The counting will take place in the national capital on July 21, after all ballots from states are brought here. Kovind's term ends on July 24.
Rajasthan
Polling began for the presidential elections on the Rajasthan Assembly premises here at 10 am on Monday, with state Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot among early voters.
The state government’s chief whip in the Assembly, Mahesh Joshi, also reached there to cast his vote.
Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said the polling will continue till 5 pm.
Both Murmu and Sinha had recently visited Jaipur to seek support for the elections.
There are a total of 200 MLAs in the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly besides 25 Lok Sabha and 10 Rajya Sabha members from the state.
Uttar Pradesh
Voting for the presidential elections commenced at the Uttar Pradesh Assembly’s Tilak Hall on Monday morning.
The voting will continue till 5 pm, a senior official said.
Brij Bhushan Dubey, the returning officer for the elections in Uttar Pradesh, said all legislators were informed and told what precautions they have to take. The MLAs will have to use a special pen given by the Election Commission of India to vote, he said.
Three polling booths have been set up. Two ballot boxes, which have come from Delhi, will be sent back to the national capital after voting is completed on July 18, Dubey said.
The counting will take place in Delhi on July 21, he said.
With the highest vote value of 208 for each of its 403 MLAs, Uttar Pradesh will be an important state to watch out for in the presidential elections.
Five MLAs from the state will cast their vote outside the state poll due to personal reasons, Dubey had earlier said.
In the opposition camp, Samajwadi Party ally Om Prakash Rajbhar's Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party has broken ranks while declaring support to Murmu.
Andhra Pradesh
Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy cast the first vote as polling process for the presidential election got underway at 10 am in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Monday.
Speaker Tammineni Sitaram was the next to exercise his franchise.
Several ministers then cast their votes.
The ruling YSR Congress pledged its support to the NDA’s presidential nominee Droupadi Murmu.
The opposition Telugu Desam Party has also backed Murmu.
In effect, all 11 members of the Rajya Sabha, 25 members of Lok Sabha from AP and 175 members of the Assembly will vote for Murmu.
West Bengal
Polling for the presidential election began in West Bengal assembly at 10 am on Monday morning with lawmakers of both ruling TMC and opposition BJP queuing up at the assembly premises to cast their votes.
Senior TMC leader and Minister Firhad Hakim said the aim is to ensure that opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha gets a handsome lead from the state
“The lead that Yashwant Sinha will get will be beyond all calculations. We are sure that even BJP MLAs will vote for our candidate,” he said.
Major non-BJP parties of the country have named Sinha, a former union minister , as the joint nominee for the presidential election.
Droupadi Murmu is the presidential nominee of the BJP-led NDA.
“The TMC should first ensure that all its votes remain intact,” BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul said.
Around 70 BJP lawmakers had camped in a city hotel since Sunday night and were given training on how to vote in the presidential polls.
BJP presently has 17 Lok Sabha MPs from West Bengal. Of them, Arjun Singh has switched over to TMC but is yet to resign as a parliamentarian.
Five of the 75 saffron party MLAs too have joined TMC without resigning as legislators. The assembly has 294 seats.
The ruling TMC has 216 MLAs and the support of the five BJP MLAs and one independent MLA.
It has 13 Rajya Sabha and 23 Lok Sabha MPs . Two of its MPs are not in touch with the party, but it has the support of BJP MP Arjun Singh.
Karnataka
Voting is underway at 'Vidhan Soudha' here for the Presidential election where the NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint opposition pick Yashwant Sinha.
There are 28 Lok Sabha members in Karnataka comprising 25 from BJP, one each from Janata Dal and Congress and an independent member. The state has 11 Rajya Sabha members -- five each from BJP and Congress, and one from JD(S) (former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda).
The state Assembly has a total strength of 225 MLAs comprising 120 from the BJP including the Speaker, 69 Congress, 32 JD(S), one from the Bahujan Samaj Party, two independents and a nominated member.
The JD(S) has extended its support to Murmu.
Murmu and Sinha had come to the city a few days ago and sought the support of the MLAs and MPs for their candidature.
According to an Information Department official, the BJP members were the first to queue up to vote.
Karnataka Minister for Water Resources Govind Karjol was the first to cast his ballot.
The polling started at 10 am and will go on till 5 pm.
Goa
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Monday cast his vote for the election of the country's next president.
After casting his vote in the state Assembly premises, Sawant told reporters that he has requested all the MLAs to vote for the National Democratic Alliance's candidate Droupadi Murmu in the presidential election.
“I am confident that we (NDA nominee) will get the maximum votes,” said the CM, who was among the early voters.
BJP MLA Dr Deviya Rane after casting her vote said, “We had an interaction with Murmu recently. It is an honour to vote for her.”
The BJP has 20 legislators in the 40-member Goa Assembly. It also has the support of two MLAs of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and three Independents.
The opposition has fielded former Union minister Yashwant Sinha against Murmu.
Goa Congress president Amit Patkar told reporters that the opposition stands united and will vote for Sinha.
The Congress has 11 MLAs, the Aam Aadmi Party has two legislators, while the Goa Forward Party and the Revolutionary Goans have one member each in the House.
Punjab & Haryana
Voting for the Presidential election in which NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu is pitted against joint opposition pick Yashwant Sinha began at the Punjab and Haryana Assembly complexes at 10 am on Monday.
Necessary arrangements for the polling have been made at the Vidhan Sabha complexes and the voting will be held till 5 pm, officials said.
In Punjab, MLAs who cast their vote early in the day included Congress' Partap Bajwa, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Sukhjinder Randhawa, and AAP leader and cabinet minister Lal Chand Kataruchak.
In Haryana, Minister Kamal Gupta was the first to vote. Many MLAs from the ruling BJP- Jannayak Janata Party reached the Assembly complex for the polling while legislators from the main opposition Congress are expected to vote in the afternoon.
Speaking to reporters, Punjab Congress MLA Khaira said, "We will vote for Yashwant Sinha and we expect that he will become the country's next President."
In the 117-member Punjab Vidhan Sabha, the AAP has 92 MLAs while the Congress has 18.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has three legislators while the BJP has two, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) one and there is one Independent MLA.
The AAP and the Congress have declared their support to Sinha while the SAD and BSP have extended support to Murmu.
The vote value of each of the MLA in the Punjab Assembly is 116, an official said.
Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress has eight MPs, the SAD and BJP have two each while one is from the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar).
All the seven Rajya Sabha MPs from Punjab are from the AAP.
In the 90-member Haryana Assembly, 89 MLAs will cast their vote in the Vidhan Sabha complex while Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi, who had cross-voted in last month's Rajya Sabha polls and was subsequently expelled from all party positions, will cast his vote in the Parliament House.
In the Haryana Assembly, the vote value of each of the MLA is 112, which pegs the cumulative value at 10,080.
The vote value of an MLA is calculated on the basis of the total population of the state, based on the 1971 census.
For the MPs, the value of the vote was reduced to 700 from 708 due to the absence of a Legislative Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir.
Elected members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and elected MLAs are entitled to vote.
In Haryana, the BJP has 40 MLAs while the Congress has 31, though Bishnoi had earlier turned rebel.
The JJP, an ally of the BJP, has 10 legislators while the Indian National Lok Dal and Haryana Lokhit Party, which are supporting the NDA candidate, have one MLA each.
Seven are Independents.
All the 10 Lok Sabha MPs from Haryana are from the BJP.
Three of the five Rajya Sabha MPs from the state are from the BJP, one is a BJP-backed Independent while one member belongs to the Congress.
Maharashtra
Voting began at 10 am in the central hall of the Vidhan Bhawan for lawmakers to cast their votes to elect the country's next president. The voting will continue till 5 pm.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and other lawmakers from the state cast their vote here on Monday to elect India's 15th president.
BJP MLA Ashish Shelar claimed that the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) presidential poll Droupadi Murmu will get "record-breaking" votes from Maharashtra.
Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly Ajit Pawar (NCP) and Congress's Balasaheb Thorat were also among the early voters.
Pune BJP MLA Mukta Tilak, who is suffering from a serious illness, also arrived in the Vidhan Bhawan to cast her vote.
The opposition has nominated former Union minister Yashwant Sinha against Murmu.
MLAs and MPs form the electoral college to elect the President of India.
The BJP has 106 MLAs in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly along with 40 legislators belonging to the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena, besides 10 independents who support the BJP.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena with 15 MLAs has announced support for Murmu.
The NCP and Congress have 53 and 44 MLAs, respectively.
One seat in the House is lying vacant due to the death of a Shiv Sena MLA
Meanwhile, BJP MLA and former state minister Ashish Shelar claimed Murmu will get "record-breaking" votes from Maharashtra.
"She will get votes across the party lines. You will see a huge turnout in this election. So, the lead that you see from Maharashtra will create a political history in the presidential polls,” he further claimed while talking to reporters.
Taking a dig at the Maha Vikas Aghadi, a coalition of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress, Shelar said it did not seem to have coordination.
The opposition MLAs will vote in favour of Murmu, much against the decision of their respective parties, he claimed.
Maharashtra BJP MLA Babanrao Lonikar on Monday objected to Congress legislator Nitin Raut not standing in a queue in the Vidhan Bhawan here to vote for the presidential election.
Lonikar said he will appeal to the Election Commission to declare Raut's vote as invalid.\
Speaking to reporters in the Vidhan Bhawan premises, Lonikar said Nitin Raut arrived in the central hall before voting began.
"Instead of standing in the queue like us, he directly went inside to cast his vote. This is unacceptable. I am going to write to the Election Commission of India that his vote should be considered invalid,” Lonikar said.
(With PTI Inputs)
