Finance
The voting for India’s next President, a close race between the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) Droupadi Murmu and the Opposition’s Yashwant Sinha, ended on Monday, 18 July, with ballots cast by MPs in Parliament House in Delhi and MLAs and chief ministers in state assemblies across the country.
Votes were cast from 10 am to 5 pm. Now the results will be declared on July 21. President Ram Nath Kovind’s term ends on July 24. The new President will be sworn in on 25 July.
PC Mody, Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha, told the media that 99.18 percent of MPs voted on Monday.
“736 electors, including 727 members of Parliament and nine legislative assembly members were permitted by the Election Commission to vote, out of which 730 cast their votes,” he said.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Congress President Sonia Gandhi voted at the Parliament House in Delhi, several chief ministers, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Keriwal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, and Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, voted at their respective state assemblies.
The Monsoon Session of Parliament too commenced on Monday morning, with both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha adjourning around midday due to protests and sloganeering by Opposition MPs over price rises and inflation.
