Explainer : How The President Of India Is Elected?

The election for the office of the President of India takes place by an electoral college comprising the members of both the houses of Parliament and the members of the legislative assemblies of all the States and Union Territories.

The nominated members of either Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha or Legislative Assemblies of the States are not eligible to be included in the Electoral College and therefore, they are not entitled to participate in the election. Similarly, members of the Legislative Councils are also not electors for the Presidential election.

The nomination of a candidate for the office of the President needs to be consented by at least 50 electors as proposers and 50 electors as seconders. The election process is then concluded by means of a secret ballot. The manner of election of President is provided by Article 55 of the Constitution which talks about uniformity in representation of different states in the election process of the President. Article 55 (3) of the Constitution provides that the election shall be held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting at such election shall be by secret ballot.

Political parties cannot issue any whip to their MPs and MLAs in the matter of voting in the Presidential election. 

Preconditions for the post of Indian President-

As per Article 58 of the Constitution of India, the person to contest for the candidature of the President must be a citizen of India, and should at least be 35 years old. Also, similar to a member of the Lok Sabha, the Presidential candidate can be disqualified on the ground of holding an office of profit under Government of India or State Government.

Nomination process for the post of The President of India-

• As determined by the Election Commission, a prescribed form (Form 2) in accordance with the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Election Rules, 1974 have to abided by while filing the candidate's nomination. The said form is then accepted by at least 50 electors as proposers and at least 50 electors as seconders.

*The elector here implies (elected MPs and elected MLAs).

• The nomination paper after completion has to be then presented to the Returning Officer on any day except a public holiday. The papers can be filed either by the candidates themselves or by any of their supporters.

• Subsequently, a payment of Rs 15,000 is made as security deposit by the aspiring candidate to the Returning Officer. The payment can be made in cash or cheque exhibiting that the deposit has been made in the Reserve Bank of India or in a government treasury.

• A certified copy of the entry needs to be presented by the candidate displaying his name in the electoral roll for the Parliamentary Constituency in which the candidate is listed as an elector.

"The President this year will broadly be elected by 543 Lok Sabha members, 233 Rajya Sabha members and 4033 MLA's. And the complete estimate of the electoral college, comprising 4,809 electors, is 10,86,431", the Election Commission said in the press conference announcing Presidential elections.

The Presidential elections follow the system of proportional representation.

The value of vote for each MP is 700. It was reduced from 708 after the Jammu & Kashmir Assembly was dissolved in 2018, The value of an MLAs vote depends on the state the MLA belongs to.

There is a general formula that is used to determine the value of a vote- the total population of the state is divided by 1,000 times the strength of its Legislative Assembly. Although, as per the 84th Amendment of the Indian Constitution any change in the boundaries of the constituency is forbidden until the national census of 2026 is published. This implies that the population which is undertaken for this process is based on the 1971 census. For example, if we intend to calculate the value of vote that an MLA from Karnataka will have, we use Karnataka's population data from the 1971 census which was 29,299,014, and the strength of the Karnataka Assembly which stands at 224. Therefore, the value would be 29,299,014 divided (224 x 100), which equals 130.7, rounding it off to 131. Hence, a Karnataka MLA's vote will have a value of 131.

The total value of votes for MLAs for 16th Presidential Election is 543231. The total value of votes for MPs is 543200. The total value of vote of electors for the Presidential Election, 2022 is 1086431. 

Presently, at 208, MLAs from Uttar Pradesh have the highest value assigned to their votes, while Sikkim has the lowest, which stands at seven. 

So far, the ruling coalition is yet to finalise its candidate for the Presidential election. There are reports that Yashwant Sinha has been chosen as the Presidential candidate by the opposition.

(Tusharika Narwal is currently working as Assistant Lecturer and Assistant Dean Examinations (BBA LL.B) at Jindal Global Law School)