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Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday cast their votes to choose the country's next President. Prominent among those who exercised their franchise in Parliament included Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Defence Minister A K Antony, Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and other dignitaries. Voting, which began at 10 a.m., will end at 5 p.m. The voting process is presently underway in New Delhi and various state capitals of the country. Incumbent President Pratibha Devisingh Patil's term ends on July 24. UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee's chances got a major boost on Tuesday after West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee pledged to support him the Raisina Hill race. As many as 4,896 lawmakers- 776 MPs and 4,120 MLAs are eligible to vote in parliament and state assemblies. The total vote value is 10.98 lakh and a winning candidate needs to get 5,49,442 vote value if all of them exercise franchise. The votes will be counted on Sunday and the result is likely to be known by early evening. Besides the UPA and its four supporting parties-SP, BSP, RJD, JD (S), NDA partners JD (U) and Shiv Sena as also the CPI (M) and Forward Bloc have declared their support for Mukherjee. There are around 32,000 votes with smaller parties, who have no presence in parliament but have legislators in the states. Sangma, a former Lok Sabha Speaker, jumped into the fray playing the tribal card with the initial support of the Biju Janata Dal and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The BJP and Akali Dal decided to back Sangma, who quit the NCP, the party he founded with Sharad Pawar, to contest the election. The President of India is the head of state of the Republic of India . The President is the formal head of the legislature, executive and judiciary branches of Indian Democracy and is the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The powers to pardon and clemency are vested with the President of India. The President is elected, from a group of nominees, by the elected members of the Parliament of India (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) as well as of the state legislatures (Vidhan Sabhas), and serves for a term of five years.

PM, Sonia cast votes for prez poll; voting underway