Voting is to be held today for the election of the next President of the country. The voting process will be completed in the Parliament House and the Legislative Assemblies of different states from 10 am to 5 pm on Monday. The Election Commission will declare the results on July 21, three days after the voting. That is, under the whole process, on July 25, the new President of the country will take the oath of office and secrecy. 

However, there are many questions in the minds of the people regarding the voting process to be held tomorrow? For example, how are presidential elections different from general elections? What will be the voting process in these? Who will vote in these? Is the value of vote of different voters also different? How is the value of votes decided? Let's know… 

In the election of the President, all the MPs of Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and MLAs of all the states cast their votes. The importance of each of these votes is different. Even the value of vote of an MLA of different state is different. The value of a vote of an MP is 708. But this time due to absence of assembly in Jammu and Kashmir, the value of votes of MPs has come down to 700. On the other hand, the value of the vote of MLAs depends on the population of that state and the number of seats.  

The value of the vote of an MLA of the country's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, is the highest at 208. At the same time, after this, the value of the vote of an MLA from Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu is 176 and the value of the vote of an MLA from Maharashtra is 175. The value of vote of an MLA of Bihar is 173. Sikkim's MLAs have the least value. The value of the vote of an MLA here is seven. After this the number comes from the MLAs of Arunachal and Mizoram. The value of vote of an MLA here is eight.

Out of 245 Rajya Sabha MPs, 233 vote in the presidential election. 543 MPs cast their votes in the Lok Sabha. The cost of one vote of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha members is 700. The number of members in both the houses is 776. In this sense, the value of all the votes of MPs is 5,43,200. Now if we look at the total value of the votes of the members of the assembly and the MPs, then it becomes 10 lakh 86 thousand 431. Meaning that votes of such value will be cast in the presidential election.

The members of the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and the Legislative Assemblies of the states cast their votes in the presidential election. Out of the 245-member Rajya Sabha, only 233 MPs can cast their votes. 12 nominated MPs do not vote in this election. With this, all 543 members of the Lok Sabha will participate in voting. These will also include the winning MPs of the recent by-elections held in Azamgarh, Rampur and Sangrur.  

Apart from this, a total of 4 thousand 33 MLAs from all the states will also vote for the Presidential election. In this way, the total number of voters in the presidential election will be 4 thousand 809. However, the value of their votes will vary. 

In order to ease the voting process and the subsequent counting of votes, the Election Commission not only sets aside separate voting places for MPs and MLAs, but also gives them slips of different colours. While MPs get green slips for voting, the color of MLAs slips is pink. 

The voting process in the presidential election is of single transferable vote. That is, in these elections, voters can vote for more than one candidate according to their preference. For example, if there are four candidates for the presidency, then people can vote by deciding first priority (1), second priority (2), third priority (3) and fourth priority (4). However, even if voters elect only one candidate, their vote is still valid. Voters can give preference to the candidate of their choice by writing in international format or can also write marks in their own language. However, it is forbidden to write these numbers in words. If the candidate in the first preference does not get more than fifty percent of the votes, the votes of the second preference are counted.

Whip is a kind of order, then parties issue it to their MPs and MLAs. Violation of the whip also leads to loss of membership of the concerned MP or MLA. However, parties cannot issue a whip in a presidential election. In fact, voting in the presidential election is kept secret. That is, MLAs and MPs are not obliged to tell their choice to the party.