Today the Presidential election 2017 voting begins to elect India’s president. The elected representative of the Parliament and various state assemblies (MP’s and MLA’s) will vote to elect India’s next President. This fight is between two strong candidates National Democratic Alliance NDA’s candidate Ram Nath Kovind and United Progressive Alliance UPA’s candidate Meira Kumar. The term of President Pranab Mukherjee will be expired on July 25 this year. Last presidential election was held in 2012 where Pranab Mukherjee defeated P.A. Sangma and got over 69 per cent votes. BJP’s leader Ram Nath Kovind was former Governor of Bihar who was announced as the Bharatiya Janata party led NDA’s candidate for the post of India’s president by Amit Shah on June 19. And he filed his nomination for the election on June 23. While on the other hand, Congress candidate Meira Kumar was the former speaker of Lok Sabha was announced as the Indian National Congress candidates for the post of India’s Presidential election after the meeting held on the 22nd June.
Both the candidates of the presidential election are from the Dalit community and campaigned hard by visiting states to seek the support of the legislators. The president of India is elected by an electoral assembly consisting of the elected members of the legislative assemblies of the Union Territories Delhi and Puducherry. The electoral assembly comprises of 776 Members of Parliament and 4120 Member of Legislative Assembly. The total number of 32 polling stations including one in Parliament House and one in the state legislative Assemblies have been set up for today’s poll. The counting of votes will take place on July 20 in New Delhi after all the ballot boxes have been brought from various state capitals. Incumbent Pranab Mukherjee’s term comes to an end on July 24.
