Presidential Polls: Ailing Odisha MLA Arrives In Wheelchair With Oxygen Cylinder To Cast Vote

New Delhi: Voting for the 16th Presidential election, which pitted NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu against joint Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha, ended on Monday with a 98.18 per cent elector turnout, Returning Officer PC Mody informed.

“Out of 736 electors (727 MPs, 9 MLAs) permitted by the Election Commission (EC) to vote in Parliament in the Presidential poll, 730 (721 MPs, 9 MLAs) voted,” he added.

While six MPs chose to abstain, several MLAs, including one from the Congress and two from Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, claimed to have voted for NDA candidate Droupadi Murmu. No whip can be issued for Presidential elections as per law.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President JP Nadda were among the first to cast their ballots in the presidential election.

Besides Manmohan Singh and Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, BJP MLA from Odisha Pradipta Naik also arrived in a wheelchair with an oxygen cylinder straight from the hospital to cast his vote. The leader of the opposition in the Odisha Assembly is undergoing treatment at a private hospital here for post-COVID complications. He represents the Bhawanipatna assembly constituency.

The counting of votes and the declaration of results will take place on July 21. The result will also be uploaded on the Rajya Sabha website under the link- presidentialelection2022.  The new President will take oath on July 25.