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The result will be announced on July 18 though it is a forgone conclusion that National Democratic Alliance nominee A P J Abdul Kalam will easily defeat Left Front candidate Colonel Lakshmi Sehgal.
Incumbent K R Narayanan will demit office on July 24.
Voting was taken up at 1000 hours after the two Houses were adjourned for the day following obituary references to some former and sitting members. Saturday's terrorist attack in Jammu, in which 27 people were killed, was also condemned.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan was the first to exercise his franchise in the Parliament House while Union Minister of State for Tourism Vinod Khanna was the last.
The electoral college for the presidential poll consists of 4896 members -- 776 MPs and 4120 MLAs. Of them, 735 members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha exercised their franchise.
Rajya Sabha secretary general and Returning Officer R C Tripathi said, "Everything went off well at the polling centres, including the three newly carved states of Jharkhand, Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh."
Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and Lok Sabha member Vaiko, who was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, cast his ballot at the Tamil Nadu assembly secretariat in Chennai, where he was taken from Vellore central prison amidst tight security.
Lok Sabha member from West Bengal Laxman Chandra Seth and Rajya Sabha member from Sikkim Palden Tsering Gyamtso, who had opted to vote in their respective states, exercised franchise in Parliament. They were initially prevented from doing so.
Clad in a blue shirt and grey trouser, a beaming 71-year-old Kalam, who freely mixed with the MPs and journalists in Parliament, said: "I feel fantastic."
"I'm facing an election, so naturally I'll look for a victory," he said.
Thirteen people had filed their nominations for the poll. However, the candidature of most of them was rejected and only Kalam and Sehgal were left in the fray.
In a report to the Election Commission, Tripathi said around 5 people had forged signatures of MPs in their nomination papers. One of the candidate from Varanasi had forged the signatures of Abani Roy (Revolutionary Socialist Party) and Akhilesh Singh (Samajwadi Party).
During in-house inquiries made by the secretary general's office, Roy was reported to have made it clear that he had signed the nomination form of Col Sehgal.
The report impressed upon the Election Commission to ensure a 'strict and strong' action against such people.
In another case, a resident of Darbhanga (Bihar), who filed his nomination papers, had claimed the support of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Defence Minister George Fernandes and noted industrialist K K Birla, sources said.
Although his nomination paper was rejected by the returning officer, the report said, "The misleading information should be taken with a serious view."
ALSO SEE: PM, Advani cast their votes
The 11th President of India: Complete Coverage
The Presidency: A Special Series
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