Race to Raisina: India to get its 15th President today, here's how votes are being counted

India is all set to get its fifteenth President on Thursday with the counting of votes cast by MPs and MLAs in polling on July 18.

In all probability, the ex-Jharkhand governor and veteran politician from Odisha, Draupadi Murmu, who is the nominee of the BJP-led ruling NDA, is the odds-on favourite against the Opposition's Yashwant Sinha to be elected to nation's highest constitutional office.

As all eyes are on the declaration of results, counting of votes will begin from 11 am onwards. Here's the detailed procedure of counting of votes:-

1. The returning officers will check and sort the ballot papers in room number 63, the strong room of Parliament where the boxes are guarded behind round-the-clock security.
2. Two trays will be used, one for counting of each candidate, Murmu and Sinha.
3. Ballot papers of MLAs (votes in pink pens) will be sorted first, followed by that of MPs (votes in green pens) and then counting will begin.
4. Votes of all MPs of both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, except nominated MPs, and all MLAs in Legislative Assembly who took part in the election will be counted. 
5. Value of each MP's vote is 700, making it 543,200 in total for all the 776 members of Parliament. The value of each legislator's vote depends on the population of their state. The total value of votes of 4,033 MLAs is 543,231.
6. Rajya Sabha Secretary General P.C. Mody, who is the Chief Returning Officer for the poll, will oversee the counting.
7. He will first brief on the poll trends after all votes of MPs have been counted, and then again after votes of 10 States in alphabetical order have been counted.
8. He will brief once more on the poll trends after votes of 20 States have been counted, and then finally declare the result after the total counting.
9. Nominee who has polled more than the quota determined by (adding the votes polled for each candidate and dividing the sum by two and adding '1' to it) will be declared victorious.
10. If elected, Murmu will be the first tribal woman to occupy the top constitutional post in the country.
11. The incumbent President Ram Nath Kovind's term is ending on July 24 and the new President will take oath on July 25.

With Pti inputs.