MPs and legislators across the country voted to elect the next president on Monday and by the time voting closed, there were many indications that NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu was poised for a landslide victory against opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.

The votes will be counted on July 21 and the next president will be sworn in on July 25.

The Election Commission said: "As per the reports received, out of a total of 771 voting Members of Parliament (05 are vacant) and an equal total of 4025 voting members of the Legislatures (06 are (vacant and 02 are disqualified), more than 99% are now voting 100 MLA vote % is reported from Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Puducherry, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu.

Two MPs, Anant Kumar Singh and Mahendra Hari Dalvi, were ineligible to vote in the election due to disqualification under Section 8 of the RP Act, 1951 following a court order, the EC said.

Sources say eight MPs did not vote - Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dhotre (BJP); Syed Imtiaz Jaleel (AIMIM); Gajanan Kirtikar (Shiv Sena); Mohammad Sadique (Congress); TR Paarivendhar (DMK); Haji Fazlur Rehman and Atul Kumar Singh (BSP). Cross-voting, mostly in favor of Murmu, was reported from several states, including his state of Odisha, Jharkhand, where he is the governor, Gujarat and Haryana. Exactly how many MPs and MPs are crossed will be determined when the votes are counted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his wheelchair-bound successor Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, senior ministers, party leaders and MPs voted in Room No. 63 of the House of Commons. Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav also rode in a wheelchair while Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Power Minister RK Singh came with the PLO.

The BJP and its allies had nearly 48% of the votes. Getting the support of regional parties like BJD, YSRCP, BSP, AIADMK, TDP, JD (S), JMM, Shiv Sena, apart from SAD, Murmu is expected to have a turnout of more than 60% and is guaranteed to be the first woman. tribal community to occupy the highest position in the constitution.

While the outcome seems like a foregone conclusion, there is an element of cross-voting excitement in some areas.

Haryana Congress MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi, who voted in the Rajya Sabha polls last month, said he was supporting the NDA candidate. "Like the Rajya Sabha, I have also voted according to my conscience in this election," he told reporters. Asked about his future action, he said, "I will reveal it soon."

SAD MLA Manpreet Singh Ayali decided to boycott the poll and accused the BJP-led Centre, the former Congress-led government, of not addressing Punjab-related issues like his own party. . In a video message, he said that the party leadership did not consult him or the Sikh community before deciding to support Murma.

In Gujarat, NCP MLA Kandhal Jadeja said he is voting for Murma. In 2020, the NCP issued a statement announcing that Jadeja was opposed to riding and cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls. Jadeja opposed the party sweep and voted for BJP candidates instead of the Rajya Sabha convention in the 2017 and 2020 Gujarat polls. Murma was also supported by his Jharkhand party colleague Kamlesh Singh.

In Odisha, Congressman Mohammed Moquim announced that he was voting for Murma because she was "a daughter of Odisha". "I am an Odia. I voted for Droupadi Murmu because he is a son of Odisha. I followed my conscience. MPs cannot be stopped from listening to their conscience," Moquim said.

In Assam, Congress and its former ally AIIDF are at war. AIUDF MLA Karimuddin Barbhuiya says he has evidence that 20 legislators from the opposition Congress voted but did not deliver anything. The Congress rejected the charge pointing out that two of the AIUDF representatives did not turn up to vote. It also claimed that only two AIUDF representatives attended the meeting when Sinha was in Guwahati as part of his campaign.

The Electoral College, elected by the President using the proportional representation system, consists of elected Members of Parliament and MLAs. The MP's vote value has dropped to 700 out of 708 in this presidential poll due to the absence of the Jammu and Kashmir meeting. Nominated MPs and MLAs and MLCs are not eligible to vote in these elections.

The value of a vote in each MLA varies from state to state. In Uttar Pradesh, the number of MLA votes was 208, followed by 176 in Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu. In Maharashtra it is 175. For example, in Sikkim the number of votes per MLA is seven, while in Nagaland it is nine and in Mizoram eight. Initially, the Commission also allowed COVID-19 positive voters to vote in the last polling station or after all non-Covid-19 voters have voted. The EC said two Covid-positive voters voted in a meeting in Tamil Nadu and one Covid-positive MP voted in Thiruvananthapuram.