How is the President of India Elected?

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Eligibility and Conditions for the Candidate for the President of India:

Article 58 of the Indian Constitution sets the principle qualifications for becoming the President of India. Accordingly the person to be elected as the President of India must be:

a citizen of India
of 35 years of age or above
qualified to become a member of the Lok Sabha

A person shall not be eligible for election as President if he/she holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State or under any local or other authority subject to the control of any of the said Governments, except the following:

The current Vice President.
The Governor of any State.
A Minister of the Union or of any State.

The President of India should not:

Be a member of either House of Parliament or
Be a member of a House of the Legislature of any State ,and if a member of either House of Parliament or of a House of the Legislature of any State be elected President, he shall be deemed to have vacated his seat in that House on the date on which he enters upon his office as President.
Hold any other office of profit.

Procedures for Election of the President of India:

The manner of election of President of India is as per Article 55 of the Constitution of India.

Whenever the office becomes vacant, the new President is chosen by an electoral college consisting of:

the elected members of both houses of Parliament and
the elected members of the State Legislative Assemblies.

The President of India is elected indirectly by the members of the Indian Parliament and by the individual States' Legislative Assemblies.

The election is held in accordance to the system of Proportional Representation by means of Single Transferable Vote method.

Each elector casts a different number of votes.

The general principle is that the total number of votes cast by Members of Parliament equals the total number of votes cast by State Legislators.

Also, legislators from larger states cast more votes than those from smaller states.

Finally, the number of legislators in a state matters; if a state has few legislators, then each legislator has more votes; if a state has many legislators, then each legislator has fewer votes.

The actual calculation for votes cast by a particular state is calculated by dividing the state's population by 1000,

which is divided again by the number of legislators from the State voting in the Electoral College.

This number is the number of votes per legislator in a given state.

For votes cast by those in Parliament, the total number of votes cast by all state legislators is divided by the number of members of both Houses of Parliament.

This is the number of votes per member of either house of Parliament.

The Voting will take place by secret ballot system.

Although, Indian presidential elections involve actual voting by Members of the Parliaments (MP'S) and the Members of the Legislative Assemblies (M.L.A.'s) , they will tend to vote for the candidate supported by their respective parties.

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