PRANAB MUKHERJEE BECOMES PRESIDENT OF INDIA

Pranab wins the race to Raisina Hill

United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate Pranab Mukherjee wins the presidential race by beating NDA-backed PA Sangma by a huge margin as he scored more than 558,000 votescrossing the required half-way mark of 5,25,140 votes. 

His rival, former Lok Sabha speaker P.A. Sangma, was way behind with 239,966 votes as counting continued, Mukherjee's polling agent Pravin H. Parikh said. "He has crossed the halfway mark. He is the president-elect," Parikh said.

The win was anticipated as Mukherjee had the backing of the Trinamool Congress, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the DMK, the Forward Bloc and Samajwadi Party but also National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally Janata Dal-United and Shiv Sena.

"I am very happy. I thank everybody for their love and support. I thank all the people of my country," Mukherjee told a Bengali news channel.

"In the last one month I have covered the entire country. And with the emotions and feelings that I have sensed in the common people revolving round this presidential election, it felt like it was not a presidential election but a general election.

"I am very happy, and I will strive to live up to the expectations and faith that people have bestowed on me," Mukherjee said in his first comments.