President Poll: Voting Ends, Result On Sunday

In another case, Gujarat BJP MLA Kanu Kalasariya whipped up some drama by going against his party and voting for Pranab Mukherjee.

In the meantime, in Odisha, the vote of suspended BJD MLA Prabhat Biswal's vote in the presidential election was rejected for allegedly showing the ballot paper after voting.

Biswal's vote was rejected on the ground that his ballot paper was shown to the presiding officer after the legislator from Cuttack-Chowdwar had cast his vote, Sarangi said adding that as per rules one cannot show the ballot paper before dropping it in the box.

However, Biswal claimed that the ballot paper needed to be folded four times before being dropped in the box while he had folded it twice and would have completed the process before putting it in the box. Biswal said "It was not a deliberate act. It simply did not occur to me," as reported by IBN Live.

Meanwhile, Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), which has 12 MLAs, decided to refrain from voting.

Besides the UPA and its four supporting parties - the Samajwadi Party, the BSP, the RJD and the JD(S) - NDA members JD(U) and Shiv Sena as well as the CPM and Forward Bloc had earlier declared their support for Mukherjee.

The CPI, RSP, the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which jointly have about 36,000 votes, had said that they would abstain from the voting.

Sangma, a former Lok Sabha Speaker, jumped into the fray playing the tribal card with initial support of the BJD and the AIADMK. The BJP and the Akali Dal decided to back Sangma, who quit the NCP, the party he founded with Sharad Pawar, to contest the election.