A Glance on How Presidential Election Held In India

A Glance On How Presidential Elections Are Held In India

Indian atmosphere is currently under the cool shade of monsoon clouds in the month of July but the political climate is very hot as monsoon session of the parliament is expected to kick start next week with voting for the next president of India.  The voting for the Presidential elections will be held on 18^th July 2022 between two candidates – Draupadi Murmu and Yashwant Sinha. The present President of India, Ram Nath Kovind will demit is office on 25^th July 2022.

In India, the president is considered as the first citizen of India. As per the article 60 of the constitution, the President’s duty is to uphold, defend and preserve the constitution of India. He also appoints the Chief Justice of India and other Supreme Court judges on the advice of the CJI.

Eligibility to act as the President:

• He or She must be citizen of India and should be at least 35 years old according to Article 58 of the Constitution of India.
• He or She must not hold any office of profit under the Government of India or the State Government.

Procedure to elect the President of India:  

Below are the persons who vote in the Presidential Elections:

• The Representatives of Parliament
• State Legislatives.

 It means the elected members of the Both Lower and Upper Houses of the Parliament as well as the elected members of Legislative Assemblies of the States including the National Capital Territory of Delhi and Pudducherry are eligible to vote. Nominated members of Rajya Sabha, Lok Sabha and the Assemblies, and members of state Legislative Councils, are not part of the Electoral College.

Voting Procedure:

• The Presidential Election in India follows the system of proportional representation
• In this process, the value of each vote is pre-determined in proportion to the population of the representative state based on the census of 1971.
• For example, the value of each MLA’s vote varies from a high of 208 in Uttar Pradesh to a low of 7 in Sikkim.
• The above value is calculated by the average constituency size, determined by the 1971 census, in his/her state or union territory, and divided by 1,000. (Example: For Uttar Pradesh: 83849905/403/1000 = 208)
• This means that Uttar Pradesh’s 403 MLAs contribute 208 × 403 = 83,824 votes, while Sikkim’s 32 MLAs contribute 32 × 7 = 224 votes.
• The weighted votes from all the Assemblies of the country go up to 5.43 lakh.
• Jammu & Kashmir MLAs would not be part of the process as assembly is yet to be constituted after the erstwhile State was bifurcated into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in 2019.
• However, in the July 18 presidential polls, five Lok Sabha members from the Union Territory are eligible to cast their votes.
• The process says that the 776 MPs i.e., 543 in Lok Sabha and 233 in Rajya Sabha, should contribute the same total of votes as the MLAs.
• So, now the value the vote of a Member of Parliament will go down to 700 from 708 in the Presidential polls due to the absence of the Legislative Assembly in Jammu & Kashmir.
• Thus, the value of each MP’s vote is 5.43 lakh divided by 776, which comes rounded off to 700.
• The combined electoral pool from the Assemblies and Parliament gets up to 10.86 lakh.
• So the total value of vote comes around 10.86 lakh for this term Presidential Elections.

Below is the state wise eligible votes and value of the same:

The candidate who gets the majority in the above voting will be elected as the New President of India and the tenure lasts for 5 years. Let us wait and watch who will be the 15^th President of India in this upcoming election.