The Presidential election will be held on July 19, the Election Commission announced today, setting in motion the process to decide the successor to incumbent A P J Abdul Kalam.Counting of votes for the election to the 13th President is scheduled on July 21, three days before Kalam demits office.Announcing the poll schedule, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami said that the election shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote and the voting would be by secret ballot.Lok Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary has been appointed Returning Officer for the election.According to the schedule, the notification for the election would be issued on June 16, the last date for filing nominations is June 30, scrutiny on July 2 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is July 4.776 Members of Parliament, including 543 from Lok Sabha and 4,120 MLAs from various states, including Delhi and Puducherry, constitute the electoral college whose total vote value comes to 10,98,882 votes.The ruling UPA alliance has got over 5.13 lakh votes while the strength of the opposition NDA is over 3.54 lakh votes and the combination of eight regional parties constituting the third front accounts for 1.05 lakh votes.
