Presidential polls: Droupadi Murmu leads after first round of counting

Counting of votes for the recently-held 15th Presidential election begins on July 21 with the results of the contest between BJP-led NDA candidate Draupadi Murmu and joint Oppposition candidate Yashwant Sinha to be declared.

The NDA’s presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu is leading with 540 of the 748 votes of the MPs, while Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha has received 208 votes after the first round of counting, Returning Officer P C Mody said on Thursday.

Votes of 15 MPs were declared invalid, he said, adding that all the votes of MPs have been counted. Eight MPs did not vote in the presidential election, Mody said.

Eight MPs did not vote in the presidential election, Mody said. With each MP having a vote value of 700 in this presidential election, Murmu received a total of 5,23,600 votes which is 72.19 per cent of the total valid MP votes, indicating some cross-voting in her favour, officials said.

Going by the strength of the parties who officially extended support to Murmu, she is estimated to have got votes of five to six more MPs. As many as 538 MPs of various parties had extended their support to Murmu ahead of the election, but a few of them did not vote.

On the other hand, Sinha’s total vote value stood at 1,45,600, which is 27.81 per cent of the total valid votes. The counting for the second round of votes of the MLAs has begun, officials said.