New Delhi, July 19 (UNI) Polling for the 13th presidential elections in the Delhi Legislative Assembly today passed off peacefully with 69 out of the 70 MLAs of the House casting their votes.

Amid tight security, 69 MLAs of the State Assembly, barring BJP MLA Dayanand Chandela, cast their votes for the Presidential polls at the Old Secretariat, Election Commission officials said.

Mr Chandela did not cast his vote and was reported to be out of the city.

The voting for the election, which began at 1000 hours, ended at 1700 hours.

The polling began on the brisk note in the morning with all Congress MLAs and 19 BJP MLAs casting their votes in the first three hours of polling. In fact, 67 MLAs had cast their votes till 1300 Hours.

Among the first to cast their votes were Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rambabu Sharma and Delhi BJP chief Harshvardhan.

The entire premises of the State Assembly was cordoned off since last night with the personnel of the CRPF stationed at strategic points to facilitate smooth polling.

The Congress has 47 MLAs in the 70-member State Assembly while the BJP has 20 MLAs. The NCP has one seat in the House while the Ramvilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party has one seat(Shoib Iqbal) and the independents one (Ranbir Singh Kharab).

Apart from the votes of the 47 Congress MLAs, UPA is confident of getting votes of Mr Ramvir Singh Bidhuri of the NCP, Mr Shoib Iqbal of the LJP and the independent MLA Ranbir Singh Kharab for its Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil.

UNI