The 15th President of the country will take the oath of office on July 25

New Delhi: The name of the 15th President of the country will be announced today. Voting for the Presidential election has been held on 18th July and the counting of votes will begin at 11 am today at the Parliament House. Draupadi Murmu is from the ruling National Democratic Alliance while Yashwant Sinha is the candidate for the opposition. There is a high probability of Murmu’s victory. If she wins, she will become the country’s first tribal woman president.

The term of the current President of the country, Ram Nath Kovind, will end on July 24 and the new President will take oath on July 25. Ballot papers from all the states have been brought to the Parliament House. Election officials are ready for counting of votes in room number 63 of Parliament. Round the clock security of ballot papers is being done in this hall. The Chief Electoral Officer for the election, Secretary General of Rajya Sabha P.C. Modi will oversee the counting of votes. The election results are likely to be declared by evening.

Modi will first give information about the election trends after counting all the votes of MPs and then share the information again after counting the votes of 10 states in alphabetical order. Voting for the presidential election was held between 10 am and 5 pm on Monday at 31 places including Parliament House and 30 centers within the assemblies. There were also reports of ‘cross voting’ in favor of Murmu in many states. Whips are not issued to the members in the presidential election.

Members of both the Houses of Parliament, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and the members of the Legislative Assemblies of all states, except the nominated MPs, vote in the Presidential election. A total of 4,809 voters, including 776 MPs and 4,033 elected MLAs, were eligible to vote in the presidential election. Nominated MPs and MLAs and members of the Legislative Council cannot vote in this.

According to the Election Commission, more than 99 percent of the voters cast their vote during the voting held on Monday. Eight MPs, including Bharatiya Janata Party MPs Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre, could not vote. Deol has gone abroad for treatment during the polling while Dhotre is admitted in the ICU.

Two MLAs each from BJP and Shiv Sena, Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress, Samajwadi Party and AIMIM did not vote on Monday. Kovind had won the presidential election in the year 2017 by getting 7,02,044 votes out of a total of 10,69,358. His rival Meira Kumar got only 3,67,314 votes.