India awaits result today

Victory of Pranab Mukherjee, the ruling UPA's candidate for the presidential poll held Thursday, is a foregone conclusion, but the final outcome will be announced after counting of the ballots today at Parliament House.
"The results of the presidential election will be known immediately after counting is over Sunday," Rajya Sabha Secretary General and returning officer for the poll VK Agnihotri said here.
Rajya Sabha officials, who have been entrusted with the conduct of the presidential poll, said all the ballot boxes from the states have reached Parliament House, where a strong room for storing them had been prepared.
India's lawmakers, belonging to both the national parliament and the state legislative assemblies, had cast their ballots Thursday to elect the nation's 13th president.
About 95 percent of the total 4,896 electors - 776 MPs and 4,120 assembly members - exercised their franchise at the polling centres set up at Parliament House and 30 other state and union territories with assemblies.
Mukherjee is expected to bag 735,000 of the 1,097,000 votes, bagging the support of the United Progressive Alliance constituents such as the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress, DMK, and National Conference, apart from supporting parties such as the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and others.
His rival Purno Sangma, is expected to garner about 313,000 votes.