Crossing The 50 Percent Mark, Droupadi Murmu Set To Become India's 15th President

The NDA's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu is set to become India’s first tribal President. She crossed 50% of the total valid votes at the end of the third round of counting, defeating the opposition candidate, Yashwant Sinha with a huge difference.

An official announcement on her win is expected after all votes are counted but she has already got 5,77,777 votes, which is more than the halfway mark of the total valid votes cast in the election on July 18.

Returning Officer P C Mody announced that Murmu has already received over 53 per cent of the total valid votes. Ballots from 10 states and Union territories are being still counted.

In every round of counting so far, she has received more than two-third votes.

Sources said 17 MPs from opposition parties have cross-voted in her support.

In the third round of voting, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha and Punjab were covered. Out of 1,333, i.e. total valid votes with value of 1,65,664, Murmu received 812 votes, while Sinha got 521 votes.

In the first round of vote count, Murmu led the race with 540 of the 748 votes of the MPs, while Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha received 208 votes.

Votes of 15 MPs were declared invalid. 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.

(with inputs from PTI)