Presidential polls result announcement on July 21

New Delhi, July 20: UPA-Left candidate Pratibha Patil is all set to be elected the 13th President of India when counting of votes cast in yesterday's poll for the coveted office is taken up tomorrow at 1100 hrs.

Indications are that Ms Patil will have a smooth sail in the contest that saw Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat fighting it out as an Independent candidate, bcked by the NDA.

The entire process is expected to be completed by 1400 hrs, Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary, who was the Returning Officer for the election, told sources.

As many 88.5 per cent of MPs and 91 per cent of MLAs belonging to the electoral college exercised their franchise.

Though the total strength of MPs is 776, the effective strength was 770. As many as 636 cast votes in Parliament House polling centres while 46 cast vote in states, taking the total figure to 682 MPs or 88.5 per cent.

Of the total 4,120 MLAs, 3755 MLAs, voted making the figure 91 per cent. Eight states -- Chhatisgarh, Gujarat, Goa, Manipur, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Puducherry -- had reported 100 per cent polling.

The UNPA was in a disarray, after all the AIADMK MLAs barring party supremo Jayalalithaa came out to vote despite the Third Front deciding to abstain from the poll. This had a ripple effect with a virtual rebellion in the Asom Gana Parishad, where most of the MLAs defied party president Brindabon Goswami to go out and vote, as soon as they got the news from Chennai. While in UP, all the Samajwadi Party MLAs abstained, five of the seven party legislators in Madhya Pradesh and both in Bihar voted.

The TDP also saw problems with two senior MLAs breaking ranks to cast their votes in the Presidential polls today.

In Karnataka, while the JD(S) had decided to abstain, the Speaker and some dissident MLAs cast their votes.

Meanwhile, for the BJP, still smarting over longtime ally Shiv Sena enthusiastically supporting Ms Patil, the news from the faction-ridden Gujarat unit was far from cheering.

At least three BJP MLAs, Surat MLA Dhiru Gajer, Ramila Desai and Siddharth Parmar, said on record that they had cast their votes according to their conscience and voted for the UPA nominee. All the three criticised Chief Minister Narendra Modi's style of functioning and said they are not worried about the action that the party may initiate against them.

In Jharkhand, five rebel BJP MLAs, Pradep Yadav, Manohar Tekriwal, Ravindra Rai, Vishnu Bhaiya and Kunti Singh also cast their vote. However, they did not spell out their choice but maintained that they had cast votes according to their conscience.

The counting will be held in Room No 63, where the boxes have been kept. The room is completely sealed and there is a tight security in and around the counting centre, he added.

Elaborating on the process, Mr Achary said the counting of the votes cast at the Parliament House will be taken up first. The process will be initiated by breaking open the seal of the ballot boxes in presence of the authorised election agents of both candidates.

Once the ballot boxes are opened first, the ''pink'' coloured ballot papers of the MLAs, who voted here, would be taken out and kept separately, for inclusion in the tray of the respective state as and when that state's boxes would be opened.

The ballots would be packed in a bunches of 25 each. There will be three different trays, one each for the UPA candidate, the Independent candidate and one for the disputed ones. The disputed ones will be placed before the Returning Officer (RO) for the final judgement and accordingly, placed in the appropriate tray or rejected.

In the case of States, the counting will be taken up in the alphabetic order.

Mr Achary said once the ballot paper is counted, then the information will be passed on to the Coordinator, who will be responsible for carrying out the numerical calculations, depending upon the weightage of the vote. This will than be passed on to a special counter set up by the National Information Centre (NIC) to be passed on.

Mediapersons would be allowed to enter the counting centre in small batches of three to four persons.

UNI