Presidential polls: Who makes the final choice?

New Delhi: The much-hyped race for the Rashtrapati Bhavan finally draws to a close on Thursday. But how is the President actually elected?

The President is chosen by an Electoral College, comprising Members of both houses of Parliament and MLAs from all state Assemblies.

The electoral college comprises a total of 4,896 members -- 233 Rajya Sabha MPs, 543 Lok Sabha MPs and 4,120 state MLAs.

The value of each MP's vote has been fixed at 708, determined by dividing the total number of votes for all states by the total number of elected MPs.

The value of each MLA's vote differs from state to state it is arrived at by dividing the population of the state by 1000 and multiplying it by the number of seats in the Assembly.

The value of an Uttar Pradesh MLA's vote is the highest at 208, and that of a Sikkim MLA's vote is the lowest at 7.

On the basis of this here is a look at the shares of different parties in the 2007 polls:

The UPA, Left parties, and BSP combined have 5.7 lakh votes out of the 10.98 lakh total votes of the electoral college.

If one adds the Shiv Sena's 28,000 votes to this tally, the figure goes up to 5.98 lakh votes.

The National Conference with 4,000 votes has also pledged its support to Pratibha Patil, so that takes her numbers to 6.02 lakh votes -- way above the halfway mark of 5.49 lakh votes.

The NDA on the other hand is left with just 3.07 lakh votes.

The remaining parties have around 1.89 lakh votes. These include some NDA parties like the Trinamool Congress and United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) parties like the TDP and the Samajwadi Party, which have decided to abstain.

The single transferable vote system has a provision for second preference votes, but since it's a straight fight between Pratibha Patil and Bharion Singh Shekhawat, they may not count. The winning candidate has to secure more than 50 per cent of the votes.

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