Imphal, July 17: Voting is currently underway to elect the 14th President of India. Members of Parliament and legislative assemblies are exercising their franchise at designated centers at Parliament House and state assemblies complex.
Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh along with other Ministers of partner political parties, BJP MLAs, Congress MLAs and the lone independent MLA from Jiribam Assembly constituency, Ashab Ali cast their vote at Manipur Legislative Assembly secretariat.
Interestingly, besides the coalition government partners, the 6 congress MLAs who had joined the BJP but not officially approved by the state assembly cast their vote for the NDA sponsored candidate Ram Natha Kovind, a source said.
Till now the State Congress Party has not filed any petition for suspension of the congress MLAs under the tenth scheduled of the Indian constitution, neither the state assembly recognised them as the BJP MLAs.
The voting value of an MLA varies from state to state; higher the population higher the value of the MLA’s vote. The total population of Manipur is 2.722 million (as per the census of 2011,) and it is divided by 1000 and to that divided by number of MLAs 60. Like this the vote value of an MLA of Manipur is 45.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah who is also a legislator from Gujarat cast their vote. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Vice President Rahul Gandhi, former PM Manmohan Singh and BSP chief Mayawati were among those prominent leaders also cast their vote at Parliament house.
The total number of elected MPs in Lok Sabha is 543 (excluding the two appointed by the President of India from Ango-Indian community). Out of the 245 sanctioned strength of MPs in the Rajya Sabha 12 of them are nominated by the president, thus the total number of Rajya Sabha MPs counted for presidential election comes at 233. Added all up, the total number of MPs vote in India is 776 (Lok Sabha 543 + Rajya Sabha 233).
The value of vote of an MP is fixed at 708 in India, which is calculated by dividing the total value of all MLAs’ votes of the country (5,49,474) by the number of MPs of both the houses (776). So the total number of votes for all the MPs in India is 5,49,408. While the total number of votes in the electoral college of the election to the President of India is total value of MLAs vote 5,49,495 + total MPs vote 5,49,408 = 10,98,903 votes.
Former Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind and former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar are in the direct fight in the polls in the race to the Raisina Hills. The voting will be held till 5pm. Paper ballots are being used in this election
