By Our Special Correspondent
NDA presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu crossed the crucial 50 percent mark after the third round of counting on Thursday to win the polls against her rival Yashwant Sinha.
An official announcement of her victory is expected after all the votes are counted, but she has already received 5, 77,777 votes, more than half of the total valid votes cast in the July 18 election. Returning Officer PC Modi announced that Murmu. More than 53 percent of the total valid votes have already been secured.
Counting of votes from 10 states and union territories is going on. Sources said that 17 MPs from opposition parties cross-voted in her support.
All the MLAs in Andhra Pradesh voted in favor of Murmu, while in Arunachal Pradesh she got the votes of all but four legislators. Officials said that the NDA candidate got two-thirds of the votes in all the three rounds of counting.
So far 20 states and MPs have counted their votes. At present the votes of 10 more states and Union Territories are being counted.
Conceding defeat, opposition candidate Sinha congratulated Murmu and said every Indian hoped that as the 15th President, she would act as the "guardian of the Constitution" without fear or favor.
Sinha thanked the leaders of the opposition parties for choosing him as the consensus candidate in this election.
"I am also thankful to all the members of the Electoral College who voted for me. I have accepted the proposal of the opposition parties guided only by the philosophy of karma yoga taught by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita - 'carry out your duty without expecting its fruits'," said Sinha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president JP Nadda reached Murmu's residence to congratulate her. Defense Minister Rajnath Singh also congratulated Murmu on her "impressive" victory and asserted that her victory was a testament to the strength of Indian democracy.
The Election Commission is likely to issue an 'Election Certificate' to the winning candidate on Friday.
The states where counting of votes took place include Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Odisha.
At 64, a woman will take over from Ram Nath Kovind as India's 15th President, becoming the youngest born post-independence woman and also India's first President. She will be sworn in on July 25.
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